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Basecamp Trail Mix (And What's In Your Weed That Isn't THC or CBD) · Bite Me The Show About Edibles

• 1:16
  Margaret: Welcome friends to episode 365.
• 1:19
  Margaret: Today we are talking minor cannabinoids and a base camp trail mix as well.
• 1:25
  Margaret: Friends, I'm your host Margaret, a certified Gangier and TCI certified cannabis educator, and I believe your kitchen is the best dispensary you'll ever have.
• 1:36
  Margaret: Welcome to Bite Me, the show about edibles.
• 1:39
  Margaret: Grab a snack and let's dive in.
• 1:42
  Margaret: So recently I was planning for a camping trip and standing in my kitchen and trying to figure out what snacks would survive a cooler and my own hunger when it hit me.
• 1:59
  Margaret: What most of people know about their weed stops at a few letters, and that's THC and CBD.
• 2:06
  Margaret: That's the whole conversation for most of us, and it's leaving a lot on the table.
• 2:10
  Margaret: And I was probably also thinking about this recently because I was uploading highly educated private podcast episodes that I share in the Bite Me Cannabis Club.
• 2:21
  Margaret: And one of them was also about minor cannabinoids.
• 2:23
  Margaret: So it got me thinking about this as well.
• 2:25
  Margaret: And there's actually a few other reasons for that
• 2:27
  Speaker: too, but we'll get into that.
• 2:29
  Speaker: Today we're talking about the minor cannabinoids that everyone's suddenly marketing at you the CBG, CBN, CBC, and THCV.
• 2:37
  Speaker: And you've probably seen at least one of those letters on a label and wondered if it actually does anything or if it's just a sticker slapped on to justify a higher price tag.
• 2:45
  Speaker: Although I don't know if they always cost more necessarily.
• 2:48
  Speaker: But it turns out it might be a little bit of both, but I want to walk you through what's real and what's maybe a bit of marketing.
• 2:56
  Speaker: And then I'm going to tell you about the trail mix that I'm going to be making for the upcoming camping trip that I have planned.
• 3:04
  Speaker: So the fact is that there is well over 100 cannabinoids in the cannabis plant.
• 3:15
  Speaker: Actually, I think it's over 150.
• 3:17
  Speaker: And that's just cannabinoids.
• 3:18
  Speaker: The number of compounds in the cannabis plant is pretty staggering, which makes it so interesting to study.
• 3:23
  Speaker: THC and CBD dominate because they show up in the highest concentrations and because they're the easiest to explain to somebody who's never thought about any of this before.
• 3:32
  Speaker: And everything else kind of gets lumped into the minor cannabinoids category, which makes them sound kind of unimportant.
• 3:40
  Speaker: But they're not unimportant.
• 3:42
  Speaker: They're just harder to isolate, harder to study.
• 3:45
  Speaker: And until pretty recently, nobody was really bothering to fund the research around these.
• 3:49
  Speaker: But that's changing.
• 3:51
  Speaker: And in the last two years, there's there's been a real wave of studies on these compounds.
• 3:56
  Speaker: Some studies have been pretty solid, some are still very early.
• 4:00
  Speaker: And I wanted to walk you through four of them and what the actual evidence says and where the marketing has gotten ahead of the science, because some of it has.
• 4:09
  Speaker: Now, let me preface this also by saying that I'm not a scientist, and there's a few scientists I would love to get on this show, but I'm extrapolating this from the research that I've seen, and I think it's super interesting.
• 4:24
  Speaker: And the more we talk about this stuff, the more we can all learn and understand together.
• 4:28
  Speaker: So the first one that I find really interesting is CBG.
• 4:32
  Speaker: We're gonna start with CBG cannabidrol.
• 4:35
  Speaker: And this is the mother cannabinoid.
• 4:38
  Speaker: Early in a plant's growth cycle, CBG is a compound that eventually converts into THC, CBD, and CBC as the plant matures.
• 4:47
  Speaker: And that's why mature flower usually only has trace amounts of CBG left.
• 4:52
  Speaker: Most of it already did its job and then moved on, converted to THC.
• 4:56
  Speaker: CBG has been marketed for focus and mood lately.
• 4:59
  Speaker: And there's actually a real human study behind some of that now.
• 5:03
  Speaker: So in 2024, researchers at Washington State University and UCLA ran the first double-blind placebo-controlled human trial on CBG.
• 5:13
  Speaker: 34 adult cannabis users took 20 milligrams of hemp-derived CBG or a placebo, and the researchers measured their anxiety, stress, and mood afterward.
• 5:24
  Speaker: The result?
• 5:25
  Speaker: CBG produced a real measurable drop in anxiety and stress compared to placebo with no intoxication and no impairment.
• 5:34
  Speaker: It even showed a mild improvement in verbal memory, which is the opposite of what you'd expect from most cannabinoids.
• 5:41
  Speaker: That study is published in scientific reports.
• 5:44
  Speaker: It's called The Acute Effects of Cannabigarol on anxiety, stress, and mood.
• 5:49
  Speaker: And put the citation in the show notes.
• 5:52
  Speaker: One study of 34 people isn't the final word on anything.
• 5:55
  Speaker: It's a pretty small study, but it's real human people, human data, not just a rat study or cell culture.
• 6:01
  Speaker: And that puts CBG in a different category than a lot of what's on the shelves right now.
• 6:06
  Speaker: And I will also add to this that there are a few folks that I follow online.
• 6:10
  Speaker: There is one, Miyabi Shields, and she is one of those scientists that I would love to have on this show.
• 6:15
  Speaker: She is a big proponent of blending THC with CBD and CBG specifically.
• 6:19
  Speaker: And I've heard of other people doing the same as well, people through the Cannabis Institute from where I got my cannabis educator certification.
• 6:29
  Speaker: And a lot of those folks also swear by using CBG in conjunction with THC.
• 6:35
  Speaker: When I vape THC, it is very easy for me to get anxious very quickly, especially if I'm consuming more.
• 6:42
  Speaker: And so I'm very interested in this CBG.
• 6:44
  Speaker: And I did find recently that there is a local outdoor producer that carries a CBG flower.
• 6:54
  Speaker: And I am definitely interested in picking some of that up so I can test it out for myself.
• 6:58
  Speaker: I mean, it would still be an N equals one experiment, but I think the science on this is really interesting.
• 7:03
  Speaker: The next one is CBN, cannabinol.
• 7:10
  Speaker: This is the one that gets called the sleep cannabinoid constantly.
• 7:13
  Speaker: And to be straight with you about where that reputation comes from, it's because CBD or CBN isn't made directly by the plant the way CBD is.
• 7:26
  Speaker: It forms when THC degrades from age, heat, or light exposure.
• 7:30
  Speaker: Older cannabis that's been sitting around tends to have more of it.
• 7:33
  Speaker: For decades, people noticed that old weed felt more sedating and just assumed it was weaker THC.
• 7:39
  Speaker: But it turns out that that assumption might have been backwards.
• 7:42
  Speaker: In 2024, researchers at the University of Sydney ran the first study to actually measure CBN's effects on sleep using objective data.
• 7:52
  Speaker: In this case, polysomnography in rats.
• 7:55
  Speaker: And CBN increased total sleep time with an effect on non-REM sleep that was comparable to Zolpidem, which is a prescription sleep medication.
• 8:06
  Speaker: And it also increased REM sleep as well, which Zolpidem doesn't do.
• 8:12
  Speaker: That's published in the Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology.
• 8:16
  Speaker: And just for those of you listening, I had to say that word about 15 times.
• 8:22
  Speaker: I had to edit them all out because that one is a real tongue twister.
• 8:27
  Speaker: Now, here's the caveat around this, because obviously we, you know, we need to talk about it, that it's a rat study.
• 8:33
  Speaker: Human trials on isolated CBN for sleep are still underway, but they're not finished yet.
• 8:38
  Speaker: Some research, including a molecular biologist writing for Project CBD, have pushed back pretty hard on the sleepy CBN narrative, saying the human clinical picture is still too thin to call this settled.
• 8:51
  Speaker: And so the fair way to say this is CBN has real promising animal data behind it.
• 8:57
  Speaker: And the human research is catching up, but it's not yet proven as a human sleep aid, no matter what the label on your gummy jar wants you to believe.
• 9:05
  Speaker: Now, having said that, I am planning an episode in the coming months on sleep, cannabis and sleep.
• 9:13
  Speaker: And I'm hoping to get an expert guest on here so we can dive deeper into that one.
• 9:17
  Speaker: And we'll definitely, I'll definitely be bringing up CBN in this particular instance, because I also happen to think if you can get off pharmaceuticals when it comes to sleep, that's probably better for your long-term health.
• 9:29
  Speaker: And I'm also someone that has uh an URA ring, and I would love to find some high CBE and flour myself to try it out and see if it makes any difference in my own REM sleep or non-REM sleep, because the ring that I have does track different sleep stages and how long you spend in those sleep stages.
• 9:48
  Speaker: So I think it would be really interesting to test that out.
• 9:51
  Speaker: And I do find that I use cannabis pretty much most evenings and it doesn't seem to affect my REM or deep sleep.
• 9:58
  Speaker: I still get adequate of both.
• 10:00
  Speaker: Jury's still out a bit on that one, but also if it works for you, keep doing it.
• 10:05
  Speaker: But is it necessarily worth paying extra for?
• 10:08
  Speaker: That's a question that only you can answer.
• 10:11
  Speaker: The next one is CBC or cannabichromine.
• 10:18
  Speaker: And this is a quiet one.
• 10:20
  Speaker: It won't get you high on its own.
• 10:21
  Speaker: It doesn't get nearly the marketing attention that CBG and CBN do, but the research on it is pretty interesting.
• 10:28
  Speaker: And CBC has been studied for pain and inflammation as far back as the 1980s.
• 10:34
  Speaker: Older animal research from May One and colleagues found that CBC blocked pain associated with osteoarthritis and mice.
• 10:42
  Speaker: More recently, a 2023 study looked at CBC alongside THCV and CBN together in human macrophage cells, the immune cells responsible for a lot of your body's inflammatory response, and found anti-inflammatory effects across all three.
• 10:59
  Speaker: That one's useful because it's not just CBC in isolation, it's minor cannabinoids working in combination, which is closer to how you'd actually encounter them in your flour or perhaps in an edible.
• 11:12
  Speaker: And there's also older research, sometimes referred to as the DeLong study, showing that CBC combined with THC produced a stronger anti-inflammatory response than either compound produced alone.
• 11:25
  Speaker: That's the entourage effect in action and the idea that cannabinoids do more together than any other any of them do solo, which I think is also good to hear because I know there's probably going to be a push as we move forward and do more research on these compounds for the pharmaceutical industry to want to extract them and isolate them and then sell them back to us as a singular compound.
• 11:50
  Speaker: But when you know that something like CBC works better in combination with THC, it makes a real argument for why we should be leaving them alone and just growing flour that has this combination of THC, CBD, CBC, and these other compounds because we're going to get more from them together than isolated.
• 12:10
  Speaker: And that will also preserve and protect our ability to grow our own, to make our own edibles, and just consume the flour in the way that suits us best.
• 12:18
  Speaker: CBC probably isn't going to headline a product on its own anytime soon, but it might be one of the more legitimate arguments for why whole plant and multicannabinoid products can outperform any isolate.
• 12:30
  Speaker: The last one we're going to touch on today is THCV Tetrahydrocannabivarin.
• 12:40
  Speaker: I did that on one take.
• 12:42
  Speaker: This is the one getting marketed as the quote-unquote diet weed, which I don't really like that term all that much, but I want to slow down here because I actually covered some of this territory before.
• 12:52
  Speaker: And if you go back and listen to the Munchies episode that I did, we talked about the neuroscience of why cannabis makes most people hungry.
• 12:59
  Speaker: And THC is the interesting exception to that whole conversation because unlike THC, early research suggests that it might work the opposite way.
• 13:07
  Speaker: THC appears to act as an antagonist at the CB1 receptor, the same receptor THC activates to stimulate appetite.
• 13:15
  Speaker: And blocking it instead of activating it is a theory behind why THCV might reduce hunger instead of triggering it.
• 13:23
  Speaker: And there's a real human trial behind a part of this.
• 13:26
  Speaker: The study led by researcher Circe O'Sullivan, who gave people with type 2 diabetes five milligrams of purified THCV twice a day for 13 weeks and improved fasting blood glucose and pancreatic beta cell function, which is legitimate clinical data published and real.
• 13:44
  Speaker: But here's what I need to be honest with you about the way O'Sullivan was honest in her own interview about it.
• 13:50
  Speaker: Her direct quote was that the published evidence does not yet support the idea that THCV is an appetite suppressant in humans.
• 13:58
  Speaker: The appetite piece is mostly animal research, going back to a 2009 rodent study.
• 14:03
  Speaker: There's a newer small human study out of 2025 looking at THCV and CBD strips together for weight loss that showed modest results over 90 days, but is early and it's a combination product, not THCV alone.
• 14:19
  Speaker: So the honest version is this THCV has real published human data for blood sugar regulation.
• 14:26
  Speaker: The appetite suppression claim that's plastered all over THC marketing is still mostly a theory backed by animal studies, not a settled human finding.
• 14:35
  Speaker: And if a label promises it'll kill your munchies, that promise is running ahead of what the actual research shows.
• 14:41
  Speaker: And I do want to add to this a little bit because THCV, while maybe marketed right now as the diet weed, a lot of people also found that it was a gentler version of THC, but also had very stimulating effects without a really intense high, which a lot of people found really useful for, you know, getting some creative projects done or just getting things done while still consuming cannabis and having the benefits of, you know, say pain relief or anxiety relief or those things, and you know, still had to function.
• 15:11
  Speaker: So that's another reason why THCV has been interesting.
• 15:14
  Speaker: So here's what nobody's selling you a minor cannabinoid product wants to slow down for.
• 15:20
  Speaker: Home infusions almost never isolate a single cannabinoid, as I we all know.
• 15:25
  Speaker: And when you infuse butter or oil with your flour, you're pulling whatever profile that plant happens to have THC, CBD, whatever CBG, CBN, CBC, or THCV happens to be present in whatever ratio nature decided on.
• 15:39
  Speaker: So you're not making a CBN gummy.
• 15:41
  Speaker: You're making a whole plant infusion with a little of everything in it.
• 15:45
  Speaker: If you want to know what's actually in your batch, a lab report, a certificate of analysis is the only real way to know your starting point.
• 15:53
  Speaker: And that's a deeper topic that I'm also saving for its own episode.
• 15:56
  Speaker: So know that that's coming down the pipeline as well.
• 15:59
  Speaker: But for today, the practical takeaway is this dose based on what you actually know, track what you notice, and don't assume a jar labeled with a cannabinoid is doing exactly one specific thing to your body because bodies and biology are very complicated.
• 16:18
  Speaker: And this plant is complicated.
• 16:20
  Speaker: And of course, that's part of the reason why we all love it, because this complication makes it so nuanced and so potentially individuated that the new research and science is constantly being discovered.
• 16:33
  Speaker: And that's really exciting.
• 16:35
  Speaker: If you want to sanity check a batch before you portion it out, you can always run it through the free bite me dosage calendar, and you'll find the link in the show notes.
• 16:43
  Speaker: But just know that your full spectrum whole plant extract that you're making, your infused butter or oil or alcohol, whatever it is that you're doing, is probably going to be better for you anyway than anything isolated ever could be.
• 16:58
  Speaker: Which brings me back to the camping trip.
• 17:04
  Speaker: I wasn't about to bring a jar of isolate into the backcountry.
• 17:08
  Speaker: And I should also mention that I'm not backcountry camping, so this base camp trail mix title that I've come up with might be a little extreme for what I'm actually doing.
• 17:17
  Speaker: I am going to be car camping because they're a little easier to plan for.
• 17:22
  Speaker: I wanted to bring something, obviously, that I don't have to worry about storage, but a trail mix with infused oil with whatever's in my actual flowers coming along for the ride, minor cannabinoids and all, and it travels well.
• 17:34
  Speaker: So it's not going to melt in a hot car.
• 17:36
  Speaker: It's forgiving and it's going to taste great and it'll make a nice snack.
• 17:41
  Speaker: So I'm calling it the Base Camp Trail Mix.
• 17:45
  Speaker: And I realized when I wrote it this recipe to begin with, it called for toasted almonds, cashews, papitas, dried cherries, and apricots, a little maple syrup and cinnamon, and an infused oil doing the quiet work underneath of it all.
• 18:00
  Speaker: I realized when I looked at my own cupboard that I don't have all those things.
• 18:04
  Speaker: I have some almonds, but not enough to make a whole batch of this stuff.
• 18:08
  Speaker: So I'm going to combine it with peanuts and pecans as well as the cashews.
• 18:12
  Speaker: I did find some papitas.
• 18:14
  Speaker: I have dried cherries, and I'll probably also use raisins as well because I have some of those.
• 18:21
  Speaker: I did have dried figs, which have been really nice in that too, chopped up, but I ate them all.
• 18:25
  Speaker: So I have none left.
• 18:27
  Speaker: I think you could also use maple syrup or honey for this, depending.
• 18:31
  Speaker: It's one of those recipes, as you all probably know, if you've been listening for a while, that I love to make a recipe and then tailor it to fit my needs based on what I happen to have in my pantry at that time.
• 18:42
  Speaker: And this is definitely one of those recipes.
• 18:45
  Speaker: So the short version here, because there will be the will the full recipe will be in the show notes on the website, is you toast the nuts and seeds with the infused oils, infused oil, maple syrup, cinnamon, and salt at 300 degrees for about 15 to 18 minutes.
• 19:02
  Speaker: Let it cool completely before you add the fruit, and then you portion it into bags before you leave the kitchen.
• 19:08
  Speaker: And there you go.
• 19:09
  Speaker: Just a quick note on dosing here, same as always.
• 19:12
  Speaker: You dose per serving depending on the entirety of the potency of your oil you started with.
• 19:16
  Speaker: Run it through the calculator and before you portion it, not after.
• 19:20
  Speaker: Although, if you have a pretty good idea of how the how you know strong the whole batch is, you can also figure it out.
• 19:25
  Speaker: But you'll find the recipe in both Imperial and Metric.
• 19:30
  Speaker: I'm trying to do it in both now, up on the Bite Me episode post for this episode.
• 19:34
  Speaker: There's also a recipe card, a PDF that will be in the Bite Me Cannabis Club in the recipe library, because that's where all the PDFs live now.
• 19:44
  Speaker: So that's another reason to join the Bite Me Cannabis Club if you've been thinking about it.
• 19:50
  Speaker: So that's minor cannabinoids friends.
• 19:52
  Speaker: CBG with real human data behind the anxiety claims, CBN with promising animal research, CBC quietly doing more than it gets credit for, and THCV with legitimate blood sugar research behind it, but appetite claims are still mostly theory.
• 20:09
  Speaker: And a trail mix that will survive your next trip better than anything from a dispensary shelf and for a fraction of the cost because I do know, and I not to malign anybody who shops at a dispensary, I shop at dispensaries as well.
• 20:24
  Speaker: I just know that I'm not going to be able to go in and buy a big bag of a of a trail mix that's infused.
• 20:31
  Speaker: And that's the great thing about making your own edibles, is that you can infuse things that you will never find in a dispensary because your kitchen is the best dispensary that you'll ever have.
• 20:40
  Speaker: I would also suggest you listen to the Munchies episode and you can find everything in the show notes.
• 20:46
  Speaker: With that, my friends, I am so glad you're here.
• 20:49
  Speaker: I'm glad you're listening.
• 20:51
  Speaker: I'm your host, Margaret.
• 20:52
  Speaker: And until next time, stay curious and stay high.