Cannabis Cuisine has been sadly neglected over smoking for a long time now. In eastern cultures cannabis has been ingested for thousands of years, but it appears that in the west many people would much prefer to smoke rather than cook.
It is easy to see why; a joint is much quicker and more convenient than spending an hour in the kitchen and then waiting another hour for it to take effect. However, there are many benefits to eating as opposed to smoking, and this is why I have been able to kick my smoking habit in the bum, and now only ingest my tasty herbs! I have tried giving up smoking cigarettes so many times in the past that I cannot remember, but always started again because of the tobacco I used in joints. By giving up the joints but not giving up my marijuana habit I have effectively cut tobacco out of my life.
This leads me to the most obvious benefit of ingesting rather than smoking; your health. No smoke means no carcinogens entering your lungs. No smoke means no nasty cough and sore throat.
It is also less anti-social; I am able to take a couple of cookies or brownies wherever I go, and I do not get frowned upon for eating, but you cannot smoke just anywhere. Also eating does not attract unwanted attention from police or other authorities when you are out and about. You couldn’t walk down the street smoking a doobie, but no-one will bat an eyelid to you sitting in the park and eating a piece or two of flapjack!
You can get much stronger effects from ingesting than from smoking, and when cooked in higher doses with the right ingredients can even produce a psychedelic high of the kind usually associated with much stronger drugs. The effect also lasts much longer which is an attractive prospect, particularly for medicinal users who may not be able to roll and smoke a joint at regular intervals during the day.
Finally, when cooking with cannabis nothing goes to waste. If you were to buy an amount of cannabis then find that you had a lot of stalk and stems you may be disappointed as this is not good to smoke. However it can easily be turned into a tincture with alcohol. If you were growing and had a male plant you may be disappointed with the obvious lack of buds to smoke, but leaf is just as good as bud in cannabis cuisine.
So now you know the benefits, get cracking on some of our amazing recipes!