JeffThe420Chef - The 420 Gourmet: The Elevated Art of Cannabis Cuisine

When I was six (and just learning to read), my favorite birthday present was a kids cookbook. I learned how to make all the basics, like cinnamon toast and English muffin pizza. And I also learned that the quickest way to make people feel good is to cook something delicious and share it with them. Like any precocious little boy, I got into my share of trouble. All I had to do to make things better was head to the kitchen and make something yummy to share, and all was forgotten. While I have always been interested in food and cooking, it wasnt until 2012 that I began to incorporate cannabis into my recipes.

At the time, a friends mother was being treated for cancer, and she had a medical marijuana prescription to help with her pain and nausea. Around the same time, I stumbled upon an interview with Dr. Raphael Mechoulaman Israeli organic chemist and professor of medicinal chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israelwho has been at the forefront of cannabis research for many decades. Through this interview, I found out about the medicinal compound in cannabis called cannabidiol (CBD) that helps with numerous health issues, especially when combined with a low dose of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). On the basis of that knowledge, I decided to start making edibles for my friends mother that were different from the average edibles that were being sold. At that time, youd buy an edible in a dispensary and have no clue what you were getting (and you still dont always know).

Was it a sativa or an indica strain? What was the percentage of THC? Did it contain the medicinal compound CBD? No one really knew. Dispensaries at that point were generally selling edibles that were heavy on the THC, which didnt really help my friends mother at all; they just made her feel loopy, which is not what she wanted. Instead, she needed edibles made from strains with more CBD, in addition to the THCand thats what I was able to provide. A close friend was suffering from fibromyalgia and debilitating PMS that involved joint pain and headaches around the same time. She complained that although she had a medical marijuana recommendation, she didnt smoke, and the edibles she bought didnt help her eitherthey just got her high. The more I researched, the more I learned about certain strains, like Cannatonic and Harlequin, that could really help with these and other physical ailments.

I figured if I could learn how to properly dose my edibles with the right CBD:THC ratio, I could help people feel even better. I decided to cook a few dishes with high-CBD strains in the hope that the benefits of cannabis would help ease her sufferingand it worked. I was starting to see, firsthand, the incredible medicinal power of cooking with cannabis. Another friend suffering from chronic migraines and pain after major knee surgery asked me to make her a cake with a new strain of Gods Blueberry, a high-CBD strain that she had gotten from a local dispensary. By then, I was cooking for several people with medical marijuana recommendations. She called me the next day shouting, I have no pain! Please teach me how to do this on my own.

I did, and I have been teaching people how to cook with cannabis ever since. After these early forays, I became obsessed with learning more about cannabis and how it can actually help people suffering from a multitude of ailments. Like many people, I had already known about THC, the main psychoactive compound of cannabis. But I learned that CBD is the unsung hero of cannabis; this non-psychoactive ingredient is proved to be the powerful medicinal compound in the plant. And I learned about the entourage effect, which is the interaction of the many healing compounds within each cannabis strain that allows the plant to help individuals facing various medical challenges. I call it medical manna.

The science of cannabis is fairly new, and its an ongoing learning process, as new information appears nearly every week. Most of what I have learned is from the published works of cannabis scientists such as the aforementioned Dr. Raphael Mechoulam, the grandfather of medical cannabis research and winner of numerous awards for his discoveries. At the age of eighty-four, he continues to research the chemistry of cannabis and how the chemical compounds, known as cannabinoids, help alleviate pain, reduce inflammation, lower high blood pressure, strengthen bones, shrink tumors, prevent seizures, promote healing, alleviate many of the side effects of chemotherapy, and even kill cancer cells. According to the American Cancer Society, several clinical studies have proved that cannabis is helpful in treating nausea and vomiting from cancer chemotherapy, and that it can help treat pain caused by damaged nerves and appetite. But more recently, scientists reported that THC and CBD (along with other cannabinoids) can slow the growth and/or cause the death of certain types of cancer cells in lab tests.

While most of these studies were based on smoking cannabis, Dr. Mechoulam and other cannabis researchers report that edibles help the same waythey are just metabolized differently. The more I learned from the research, the more I realized that my desire to help others feel good had taken on a new level of meaning and impact when I began cooking with cannabis. My love of food and cooking could now help others feel good on an entirely different scale. In the beginning, I prepared only cannabis-infused appetizers and dessert items. I focused on cooking and baking with strains that were high in CBD, and the edibles actually worked! Word quickly spread, which led to my cooking full meals of cannabis-infused foods.

Most strains of cannabis that contain a high percentage of CBD also have a fair amount of THC in them, which causes strong psychoactive effects. Creating edibles and full meals that didnt impart a heavy dose of THC was tricky. This meant I had to focus on low dosing, which allows people to have a full cannabis-infused meal or a handful of delicious homemade cookies, rather than just a bite or two of a not-so-great-tasting commercial cookie. With this expansion of options and variety, the issue of the taste came to the forefront. Some folks do like the cannabis taste in their edibles, but most others dontespecially when its present in every course of a meal. Even if you enjoy the taste of cannabis, you probably dont want