The world of edible cannabis is continuously evolving. With such a wide array of products to choose from, consumers can branch out in their consumption habits once comfortable. If you stepped into the world of weed by smoking a pipe, you might want to try edibles.
What started as homemade cookies and weed brownies has evolved into an increasingly sophisticated sweet landscape of tarts, mints, and candies. You will even find novel edibles in the market—things like potato chips and beef jerky.
One edible, however, has risen to the top of the cannabis products chart—gummies. Gummy edibles are an easy, discrete way of consuming marijuana, making them a hot commodity.
What are Gummy Edibles?
At first glance, weed gummies look like regular, non-THC-containing gummy snacks. Unlike typical gummy candy recipes where gelatin is added to melted sugar to form a spongy candy, THC-gummies follow a different procedure.
THC concentrates are oils and adding oil of any kind into a regular gummy candy recipe results in a chewy, soft treat. Oil doesn’t combine with the rigid, crystalline structure of candy, so to make stretchy, room temperature-safe THC gummies, emulsification is vital. Without proper emulsification, candies will be runny, tacky, and liquid-like.
Gummy edibles manufacturers combine cannabis concentrate with another ingredient—added to the candy mixture while cooked. Often, this is lecithin—either soy lecithin or sunflower lecithin.
While gummy edibles are a generic term used to refer to THC-gummies, there is a wide variety of products that come in various shapes and sizes—there are gummy worms, gummy gems, gummy bears, etc.
Why Do People Love Them?
Gummies are delicious and easy to eat. Beyond their deliciousness, though, a few technical aspects make them a popular choice among cannabis enthusiasts.
- They Are Easy to Dose – Gummies are a straightforward method by which to dose cannabis accurately. They can be uniformly made to include an exact dose every time. Fruits and chocolates often come in different sizes, making consistency difficult.
- You Can Eat Them Anytime – Small candies are consistently easy and enjoyable to consume at any time. Gummies also pack much fewer calories than a cookie, brownie, or hard candy.
- You Can Preserve them Over Time – Baked goods like cookies and brownies go bad over time. Gummies and other candy, on the other hand, have a much longer shelf life.
- They Don’t Melt – When kept under the sun, chocolates will melt, resulting in cannabinoids and terpenes dying out and weakening the effects significantly. Gummies—particularly those made with pectin—have a higher melting point. As a result, you can carry gummies with you everywhere without having to worry about storage.
Tips for Consuming Gummy Edibles
Gummy edibles look appealing due to their bright colors and fun shapes—a perfect product for a first-time edible marijuana user. However, users should exercise caution as they can be deceptively potent and result in a powerful high.
Start Small
It takes a while for marijuana edibles to unleash their magic, and it’s easy to consume too much before this happens. For this reason, experts recommend sticking to a five-milligram serving so you can better assess the effects.
Be Patient
When you smoke or vaporize marijuana, the high hits you immediately. However, when you consume a marijuana edible, you’ll have to wait until your body digests the substance before its psychoactive effects can take hold. Expect to wait up to 30 minutes to two hours before the effects kick in.
Consuming on an Empty Stomach
Experts suggest consuming plenty of water and eating a meal before ingesting edibles. Edibles get processed faster when taken on an empty stomach, but a few people reported experiencing an upset stomach or uncomfortably intense highs. Either refrain from taking edibles on an empty stomach or take a lower dose to be on the safer side.
Order Your Edibles and Enjoy in a Safe Place
While you can make edibles gummies at home, buying them from a licensed dispensary is a safer option for first-timers. At a dispensary like Arizona’s highly rated Giving Tree Dispensary, you can choose from a large variety of products curated by industry professionals. Their products are all derived from their own grows, so choosing them as a first-time option is quite beneficial. They also have a staff of highly-trained, knowledgeable individuals who can answer any questions you may have about edibles.
Dosing is much more precise, and each product is extensively lab-tested before landing on shelves. If you want to try gummy edibles, click here for THC gummies. Remember to enjoy gummy edibles in a calm and comfortable environment and start slow if you are a new user.