Ice cream, coffee, herbal teas. Many people love these products for that nice relaxing weekend on the town or along with friends. Now companies are turning to introduce these friends to the benefits of CBD with these foods as well. Currently, many people who are aware or taking cannabis products are familiar with more traditional forms like CBD oils, capsules, or gummies. But some companies are looking to diversify how people can consume CBD and other cannabinoid products through more inviting ways, even if it happens to entice someone’s sweet tooth.

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CBD Ice Cream, Extra Smooth…

Forbes recently highlighted a new company based out of Brooklyn that started its business as an ice cream truck focusing on natural ingredients and organic/vegan sourced products. For the last decade, they have expanded their operation to both USA coasts, introducing their flavors to clients across the countries, including storefronts and a grocery-store brand.

Van Leeuwen’s newest flavor jumps on the CBD trend by incorporating all the indulgent sweet and salty cravings that everyone can enjoy, while also incorporating some exciting surprises. The base of the flavor is a salty potato chip, paired with chocolate covered pretzel and roasted peanuts. Mixed inside includes a coconut oil-based hemp derivative from Plant People of New York City. Roughly, each scoop of ice cream with this flavor yields around 5mg of CBD. As far as dosing of CBD, you’d have to have a massive sweet tooth to gain an appreciable amount of CBD, but the novelty may be enough to draw new clients into the market.

One of the drawbacks to many traditional means of dosing CBD through oil or gummies is the natural taste that cannabinoid chemicals exude. In open accounts with clients who’ve tried oil products, many can say CBD can taste like grass, skunk, sweaty socks, and more. However, incorporating this chemical into a dairy product might be a smart way to cover the taste. Lactose and casein can both work together to help dissolve not only the oil carrier in most CBD products but also the CBD molecule itself, meaning more people can enjoy the beneficial effects without any sour taste left in their mouth.

However, in dissolving CBD and its carrier into the ice cream, one must consider the consistency and the texture of the product, as well as its flavor. The more concentrated one makes a scoop, the more liquid the ice cream can become given that oil has a lower freezing temperature compared to water (which is why ice cream can remain solid for long periods). As a flavor, CBD can sometimes conflict with more fruity or minty attempts; thus more savory or chocolatey flavors seem to be the most common on the market.

Overall, ice cream products may be a viable option to expose a naive cannabinoid client to the market, but you won’t be able to keep them there for long without finding a way to transition them to more therapeutic levels of CBD, which may be available in other less enticing forms. However, some companies are taking aim at precisely that concept.

Cannabis Coffee with More Kicks than One

In one of its latest articles, the Spoon talked about one company’s attempt to incorporate CBD into all kinds of products, whether or not they are fatty in nature. In chemistry, there is a concept called “Like dissolves Like” in which chemicals that are “fatty” in nature will most like dissolve best in other “fatty” liquids. Likewise, with salts being easily dissolved in water because they are easily bound by hydrogen bonds that water has plenty of. As we’ve seen in vinaigrettes, when you mix oil and water together, they tend to separate. At least until you’ve found a way to bring both worlds together.

That’s what a company called Azuca has claimed with its line of “dehydro fractalization” products that incorporate water-soluble molecules of CBD and other cannabinoid products. This means that a lot of the oil-based edibles that used to be the only way to gain consistent cannabinoid products can be expanded to many other types of foods, including confectionaries. One of Azuca’s products is focused on “hemp-infused” sugar grains. In focusing the CBD being integrated into edibles from the sugar as opposed to the oil, you can get a higher concentration of CBD with less of other harmful health detriments that fats and sugar can bring to a diet.

In creating a way for the CBD to be more water-soluble, that also impacts how each molecule can be absorbed in the intestines. Generally, CBD would be significantly absorbed into the intestines based on the fatty nature of the compound; however, it isn’t easily dissolved in the water that makes it down into the intestines given how fatty it is. But! If the CBD chemical were somehow modified to be more soluble in water, this might make the compound more accessible to be absorbed into the system as compared to other capsules or oils.

And with Azuca’s focus on the technology to help integrate more cannabis products into many other kinds of food products, the options are endless to what may come to the CBD edible market. And with its potency, it might even yield edibles that have great taste and an excellent dose for novices and pros alike to enjoy their benefits. But what might be the most exciting out of this kind of future may already be happening with a familiar face.

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All the Herbs in Your Cup

The most exciting aspect of the CBD edible market is what’s going down in the non-alcoholic drink market. New Age Beverages, led by former President of Coca-Cola and former executive at Anheuser-Busch, is introducing probably the most significant and most enticing product related to CBD: Marley Natural. Named after the much-acclaimed Reggae singer, Bob Marley, New Age is using Marley Natural as a way to accurately dose patients with CBD while also providing a burgeoning array of drink flavors that can court a large variety of new clients.

The Marley+CBD drinks are termed “Mellow Mood” and are geared as teas to relax anyone looking to not worry about a thing because it’ll be all right. Each can contain 25 mg of CBD and ranges across more traditional flavors for tea including honey, lemon raspberry, or peach raspberry. What is probably more intriguing than the drink is the company overall. With the person at the helm having led giants in the drinking industry, they are all looking to maximize the future of what can innovate the CBD industry as well as the drinking industry.

In combining the technologies that Azuca had patented along with the inventiveness of Van Leeuwen’s ice cream, New Age appears to be well situated for a booming CBD market and is aiming to be ready to ship their product. New clients will more than likely wish to try sample doses of CBD through a drink as compared to other kinds of products on the market. Fortunately, with the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, clients across the country – especially interested clients who may never have been exposed to any cannabinoid products whatsoever, will now have more access to hemp-derived CBD products.

In the end, when it comes to the future of CBD edibles, there are a few companies out there who are willing to take the risk and develop something that breaks the expectations relating to CBD and its oil-based products. These companies – when they do it right – seem to have a bright future ahead of them as long as their products deliver on the dose relative to the other kinds of CBD products out there.