Cannabis Recipes & Guides

All you need to know about Growing, Harvesting and Cooking Cannabis.

An introduction by Sarah Godfrey

Cannabis is a dietary essential and thanks to the work of Dr. William Courtney, we are now learning how to use it in its raw form.

I have come across some confusion in the media and elsewhere about what raw cannabis actually is. To clarify, raw means freshly harvested, as you would harvest a salad leaf, and not dried or cured. Raw cannabis is non-psychoactive: this is because raw cannabis contains cannabinoids in a carboxylic acid form that are not orally active in the CB-1 receptor sites, because they do not readily pass the blood brain barrier in their polar form.  Once the plant starts to dry, the COOH carboxyl group of atoms is removed during the curing process in the form of water and carbon dioxide. This enables them to readily pass the blood brain barrier, which is why decarboxylated cannabis is psychoactive.

Please remember that cannabis is illegal in the UK.  The guides and recipes available here should only be attempted within lawful jurisdictions. 

Most of the recipes in this food section are made using raw cannabis, but some recipes use cannabis oil, which is usually decarboxylated. To make it clearer which is which, and so no one ends up feeling medicated when they weren’t expecting to, we will put a green ‘Raw’ next to the recipes that use raw cannabis, and a red ‘Decarb’ (Decarboxylated) next to recipes that use cannabis oil.

Not all cannabis oil has to be decarboxylated. ‘Raw’ Oil can be made at low temperatures, but most oil is decarboxylated.

Undecarboxylated cannabis oil is more energising, but takes longer to make; decarboxylated oil is more sedating and takes less time to make. The best way is to experiment and see what suits you best.

Try to become your own doctor, because food is medicine, and cannabis is food. It is great fun to experiment with eating cannabis, as well as boosting your endocannabinoid system at the same time. Enjoy!

Sarah Godfrey is a terminal Crohn’s disease patient who survived without having any part of her digestive system removed. Sarah used cannabis, herbal medicine and diet to save her life and also to end an 18-year dependency on Codeine, and 14 years on Valium and Morphine. In February 2014, Sarah incorporated cannabis oil into her daily dietary and herbal protocol and is currently using it to treat her Crohn’s, osteoporosis and CPTSD. Sarah is a trustee of ECS Support.

When ingested, cannabis takes around two hours to take effect.