My go-to edible for daytime use is the Valhalla Sour Watermelon Sativa gummies. They hit all of the important points for me – flexible potency, great taste and consistent effects.
Tasty, Portable, Economical and Effective
One of the first and most important elements of any edible is taste. While you may be willing to deal with a not-great taste for specific effects, it is always great when the edible is delicious. Being a big fan of Jolly Roger-type flavors, I love the Sour Watermelon flavor that Valhalla uses. I can still taste the cannabis a little bit and the flavoring works in harmony with that taste, not trying to cover it up or clashing with it, as some edibles can.
Since they come in Indica and Sativa and CBD specific types, the Valhalla gummies let you find the right ratio of each through experimentation.You might want half a Sativa and half a CBD for daytime pain relief and uplift. Or half an Indica and a whole CBD for evening use or sleep support.
I have found that if I take them on a relatively empty stomach and take it with some food with fat in it as well as having caffeine, I get a perfectly strong effect that lasts at least 4-5 hours. When I feel the effects fading I can boost it with another half of a gummy, as they are easy to cut or bite through.
This is my standard edible for days when I want an energetic effect to help me get things done around the house, spark creativity or help focus on a task. Valhalla gummies deliver that consistently and with great taste!
My friend asked her favorite budtender, with the day-glo yellow hair, to recommend her favorite edibles and Dutch Girl Stroopwafels were on the top of her list. They come in a resealable container of ten 25mg cookies, equaling a total of 250 mg. The price she paid was $25.00 a container. That comes down to $1.00 per 10 mg, a very nice price!
Image courtesy Gary Uncle G Brown
The waffle is cinnamon and caramel. Crunchy on the outside and pleasingly chewy on the inside. It was a little weedy tasting, but not too bad.
She highly recommend when trying Dutch Girl Stroopwafels that I wait one and a half hours before eating more. They are slow to create a full buzz, but are VERY powerful. She was stoned for more than 3 ½ hours.
The waffles gave her a heady high. A nice, strong buzz. Once feeling the high, she began to de-stress and chill out. It was a creative, happy, stoned feeling. Dutch Girl Stroopwafels didn’t give her the munchies.
It was so nice she decided, rather quickly, to double check this product. It really is delicious and very strong. Just like her favorite budtender, she said she absolutely would suggest this to my friends, so I decided to try them.
Image Cannabis.net
I tried them one weekend afternoon at 5pm. I had a late lunch so my stomach was half full. I didn’t have caffeine with it or anything else to boost the potency. The waffles are already made with a good amount of fat from the butter, so I didn’t feel the need to follow my usual practice and eat it with something with some fat in it like an avocado or some mac & cheese.
Heeding the warning about this being a very strong product, I decided I would try half of a single waffle first. My usual dose is 10mg so trying half would bring me close, with about 12.5 mg in half a waffle. One issue for me is that they don’t easily break in half. If they are cold, they are solid enough you could cut them with a sharp knife. My attempt to break one in half gave me more like 60% and 40%, so I started with the 40%.
Image courtesy ILoveStroopwafel.com
The taste is good, the sweet caramel mixes with the crunchy sweet ice cream cone-like waffle cookie. There is definite cannabis taste at the end and it lingers with the caramel as the aftertaste. If you are familiar with Stroopwafels you know they are meant to be enjoyed with a hot drink like coffee or cocoa. As seen in the image above, you can let them warm on top of your hot beverage and then they can melt in your mouth as you eat them.
It took a while for me to feel the effects – be prepared to wait a while for this edible to hit you. Don’t take more if you don’t feel anything in the first hour, it takes a little longer for this to wind up its punch before it hits you! I was sitting for the first 60 minutes after I took it and when I stood up and walked around, I got a distinct head rush.
I ate some dinner after 90 minutes and expected that to retard or reduce the effects. After about an hour, I felt a tiny bit of body relaxation but the primary response was one of a stoned, heavy head. I am very sensitive to any sedating effects that Indica strains have, so I usually feel that more than many people. This was a “don’t drive or operate heavy machinery” kind of a very relaxed feeling with sluggish thinking and slowed reaction time. I didn’t have strong munchies.
So if you are looking for a strong, relaxing effect this is a good edible for that. Perfect for late afternoon or early evening if you want to just relax and stay in. It is not an edible I would have with my morning coffee unless I planned to do almost nothing all day :).
I first learned about transdermal patches from a good friend in Colorado whose son uses the CBD patches for pain management. For their privacy, we’ll call them Brenda and Will. Brenda had the patches recommended by a doctor for Will’s pain related to cerebral palsy. They are easy to apply and have much less side effects than opioids (and most other pain pills). The transdermal’s effects last up to 12 hours, so you don’t have to remember every 4 or 6 hours to administer another dose – or wake up to take them in the middle of the night. While other medications are necessary for his complete pain management, the CBD patches provide a more reliable and consistent foundation of pain relief than Will has ever had.
Brenda then shared that she had used them for pain as well, including after she had knee surgery. When she went in for her 3 month checkup after the surgery, her doctor was surprised to see that the knee had healed as well as if it had been 6 months. He asked her what she had done to accelerate her healing and she shared how the CBD patches had helped manage the pain and must had had an impact on the healing.
She wears the transdermal patches herself as needed for pain relief and other effects.
The transdermal patch is something like a nicotine patch, if you’ve ever seen one of those. It has an outer layer that often looks like a type of bandage fabric, a layer of medication in a medium designed to dispense consistently while worn, then a layer of adhesive to make sure it sticks to your skin.
Patches come in either single formula or a mix. They can comes as THC-Sativa, THC-Indica, THCa, CBD or CBN. There are slao patches with rations, such as CBD/THC 1:1.
To apply them, you find an area of your skin that is venous like the inside of your wrist or ankle. You can apply them close to a point of pain like a knee or hip as well, just try to make sure the area is free of oil, hair or scars. Use isopropyl alcohol to clean the area before applying the patch. Apply it firmly and evenly to ensure it adheres well to your skin. We like to use rubbing alcohol not only to clean the area but that it helps to remove the adhesive once you remove the patch.
Usually patches provide an even, long lasting effect as they release over time. As with edibles, the effects can be impacted by what you eat. If you feel the effects are too strong, try eating something to see if that reduces the effect. The effects can be boosted by using transdermal gels, edibles or smoking flowers. Always get to know your reactions to individual products first before combining them.
A favorite is Mary’s CBN patch, used to help you get to sleep and stay asleep. My local dispensaries often sell out of them within days whenever they get them in.
One of the first edibles I tried years ago were cannabis gummies. They were familiar sounding and I didn’t really know what else to try. That was a while ago. Here I am today reviewing Wana Watermelon Gummies. It feels like old times.
They come in a container of 10 pieces (20 mg each). One gummy works out to cost $2.00. This edible doesn’t say of it is Indica or Sativa and is not strain specific.
I do not like the taste of these gummies. I’ve had Wana’s mixed flavor gummies and the watermelon ones are really the best. It tastes very medicinal, then it gets bitter. I don’t enjoy the taste of these gummies. Its’ okay but just generic with the bitter aftertaste.
Although I took a little more than my usual dose, the high was not too strong. It took about 45 minutes to have any noticeable effects. This was more “up” like a sativa buzz. I was able to accomplish several tasks. Focusing was very easy. The high lasted 3 hours and I didn’t have the munchies.
Twice more I took a 10mg dose, which is my usual dose and felt practically nothing. I tried boosting them with 2.5mg of another gummy but still almost no effect. It was like taking nothing at all, which felt like a waste of money.
The edibles industry is growing with all types of amazing products. Wana Gummies are a safe bet, but I urge you to talk with your favorite budtender and ask for their recommendations and read our reviews for honest feedback.
Between the bad taste and the weak, non-specific effects, I can’t recommend these gummies.
From Incredibles, these spicy cinnamon mints, with 2mg of THC in each piece are, as the microdosed name implies, a low dose edible with calming effects. They come 100 pieces to a package, for a total of 200mg THC. They also come in a medical dose of 500mg in a package, with each mint being 5mg, so be sure to check the package before consuming.
Product and Taste
Medical dose Calming Fire Mints in 500mg package
These mints come in a small round plastic container with a screw top lid. They almost fill the container so they are much less over-packaged than other edibles. They were easy to open and should be easy for folks with limited hand strength. It’s the classic “push down and turn” lid and it doesn’t require a lot of strength to get them open, a blessing for folks with arthritis or other similar hand mobility restrictions. They are small round tablets, so they’re very convenient and portable.
There are no allergens listed on the hidden label (you have to peel the label back to read the nutrition information and ingredients). They contain no dairy or other animal products so they are suitable for vegetarians and vegans.
These are strongly flavored with cinnamon, almost an Altoids-type strength. They call them Fire Mints for a reason! If you don’t care for cinnamon you would not like these. At my normal dose they even gave me a very small stomach ache from the cinnamon, likely because of what else was in my stomach, but be aware if you are sensitive to cinnamon or have an easily upset stomach.
Dosing
These are a great cannabis edible for folks new to edibles, because you can start with one for a 2mg dose of THC to see how it effects you. If that goes well, next time try 4mg then another time 6mg. See how they work with your system and tolerance. Always start low and go slow.
Like all edibles, I try a smaller dose when I’m not familiar with the product. For these I tried three the first time, for a dose of 6mg, since my usual dose is 10mg. I felt mildly relaxed but nothing much else. The next time I tried four, for a dose of 8mg.
Effects
At 8mg I definitely felt the anti-anxiety and calming effects. I was pleasantly surprised that they were not sleep inducing, as many edibles with relaxing/ Indica-type effects can produce couch- lock or sleepiness. Sometimes you want that, but these focus on the calming without making me tired.
For those times you want the calming effects without the heavy body, these are a great low dose cannabis edible. For folks who need more than 10mg or 20mg of THC, they are not the best choice. Taking 25 of these for a 50mg dose would not be fun unless you can never get enough cinnamon!
Muncheez Cannabis Infused Cereal Bar Treats edibles come in six different cereal type flavors – Cinnamon Crunch, Cookie Krunch, Cocoa Krunch, Fruity Krunch, Berries ‘N Cream, and Cookies ‘N Cream. These combine the old school cereal flavors with an old school edible flavor. No hiding the cannabis taste here, with the taste of cannabutter these bring us back to the old days of friends homemade cannabis edibles.
Each cereal bar treat has 10mg of THC per serving, for a total of 100mg THC per package. These cereal bar treats are formulated with distillate and cannabis butter. The cannabutter gives these treats a distinctive taste that is grassy and just like homemade cannabis infused butter. The Cookies ‘N Cream we tried was made with something called “Crystal Imagination Cannabutter”.
Muncheez cannabis infused cereal bar treats
The package is a child proof plastic bag with a zip closure, it does not appear to be compostable or recyclable. After tearing off the top, you must pull the sides away from each other while pushing them apart with a finger. That is not super easy for someone with limited hand mobility or arthritis, so if you’re one of those folks you may want to cut the package open and put these into a container (child proof if children are ever where they are kept) you can open more easily. Inside are the treats and they are in a a single bar as shown in the image.
Dosing & Flavor
The smell from the container is a strong cereal and cannabis butter smell. Muncheez Cannabis Infused Cereal Bar Treats first ingredient is marshmallows which are made with corn syrup, sugar, dextrose, gelatin, natural and artificial flavors. There are other dairy products in them as well, so they are not vegetarian or vegan friendly. They also list artificial colors in the ingredients, so there are both artificial flavors and colors here. They are are not gluten free or dairy free, and they do contain coconut so not totally nut free. For allergens, the product contains coconut, milk, soy, and wheat.
These treats have a soft cookie texture and are easy to separate into single servings . Cookies ‘N Cream have a very light sugar-covered texture, almost like what you’d see in a glazed donut. They are easy to bite through and melt in the mouth similarly to a cookie. They are soft with a bit of cookie crunch and have a very pleasant mouth feel.
Muncheez Cookies ‘N Cream cereal bar treats
They are are not gluten free or dairy free, and they do contain coconut so not totally nut free. The servings are not individually wrapped and need to be cut into 10 pieces for a 10mg dose or cut those 10 each in half for a 5mg dose. They are soft and the 10 pieces are pretty clerly indicated, so it is quite easy cutting them in half.
As we always recommend with new edibles, try half of your usual dose before trying a full dose as you never know how strong something will effect you. The treats are easy to cut or bite in half to give a 5mg dose of THC, then to split again for a 2.5mg dose. As everyone is different, it’s important to try a partial dose first to see how you react to new edibles.
Since I am experienced with edibles and my usual dose is 10-15mg of THC, I began with half of a half of one piece, with 5mg THC. After having only light effects for that trial run, I then moved closer to my usual dose on another day, taking one whole gummy for a total dose of 10mg THC. I still found the effects on the mild side, so I found that for me a 12.5 mg dose gives me a solid strength effect. I sometimes use one and a one eighth pieces for a 12.5mg dose of THC when I want a stronger effect, or if I have recently eaten or if I’ve taken CBD, which can tamp down the effects.
Effects
The effects were along the lines of what you’d expect from a hybrid – some body and some head effects. Relaxed body and a little bit spacey. The impacts are not very energetic, so more for a sedentary activity at home. The effects I experienced were closely aligned with the effects from similar hybrid edibles, with a mix of head and body focused effects, but not too much either way.
Nostalgic sugary cereal flavors and middle of the road effects are what we found for these treats. We prefer to stay away from artificial flavors and colors in our edibles, but we get that having a favorite cereal flavor is attractive for an edible. Muncheez cannabis edibles bring back that cereal experience along with the cannabutter flavor, which takes us right back to old school edible flavors .
Muncheez are made by SB MIPS LLC in Henderson Colorado and they also make fruit gummies.
Currently only available in Colorado and Oklahoma.
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