Steemitculinarychallenge #18 Meals for Weightloss: WEED SALAD (Entry #1)
LOL!!!! Alright, alright seriously though what did you expect from me with @kevinwong being the guest judge this week?
I've shared a few threads of conversation with Kevin about cannabis, over the past six months. Plus, our own @englishtchrivy lives in Arnhem, which is in the Netherlands, a country where cannabis use is woven into the mainstream fabric of Dutch life.
Then there's me...I'm a cannabis coach and a Paleo and raw food enthusiast with a keen interest in holistic nutrition.
I work hard to remove as many carbohydrates as I can from the recipes that I create. This is so that the finished dishes will keep a person's blood sugar levels from raising too quickly and not create too much of a demand for insulin from the pancreas, once they are consumed. I talk in terms of grams of carbohydrates as being one of the most important components to control when designing a meal specifically for weight-loss but what you need to remember when you are reading a nutritional profile of a food, is that the grams of sugar need to be added to the grams of carbohydrates. This, once totaled, minus the grams of fibre is the true number of grams of carbohydrates/sugar.
People who are interested in consuming a low carbohydrate eating-lifestyle as a method to lose weight typically don't eat more than 30-50 grams of carbohydrates/sugar in an entire day. They strive to keep their bodies in a state of ketosis.
Ketosis is a normal metabolic process that is triggered when there isn't enough carbohydrates present in the digestive system to convert to glucose energy. Once ketosis is triggered, the body will burn fat instead, while still maintaining muscle mass.
A study, published in the American Journal of Medicine, by Elizabeth Penner MD, MPH, Hannah Beuttner BA, and Murray Mittleman MD DrPHD found that: regular cannabis users, have lower levels of fasting insulin levels and smaller waist circumferences.
(The paper was published on Mar. 02, 2013 and can be viewed here: http://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(13)00200-3/fulltext)
This means that people who ingest cannabis at least 3 times a week, have less visceral fat. (That's the bad kind of fat which congregates around your organs, chokes them out and gives your body the appearance of an apple.)
As a result of having less visceral fat, regular cannabis users are leaner and don't typically have large guts, even though we notoriously have the munchies.
Lowering insulin levels with cannabis is achieved through the consumption of the medicinal cannabinoid known as CBD. This bolsters the effects of a low carbohydrate, eating lifestyle that is ketogenic.
In addition, some strains of cannabis contain an additional cannabinoid, called THCV.
THCV is a medicinal component found in the cannabis plant that is an appetite suppressant. When it's present and ingested, it helps people to feel full and can counter-balance other cannabinoids that stimulate appetitie like THC.
THC, can make a person feel more energetic, but this sensation is dependent and ultimately determined by the specific terpene and flavinoid profile of the strain of cannabis, chosen. Not all strains of cannabis that contain THC will produce the sensation of having more energy.
Strain selection and frequency of use, matters if you are ingesting cannabis to loose weight.
What you see in my first photo is 4 different strains of cannabis. From left to right, they are:
- Grizzly (An outdoor, organically grown bud which is part of the reason it's HUGE.)
- Goddess
- C-Strain
- Grand Daddy Purps
To fully activate all the cannabinoids (or medicinal components of cannabis), the plant material needs to be decarboxylated, first. This is the first step in which the raw forms of the cannabinoids are change into their medicinally active forms. Heat is used in this process, and causes the loss of carbon dioxide, from the plant material. (If you skip this step, your finished product won't be as effective as it could be.)
To decarboxylate cannabis:
- Heat oven to 240 degrees F.
- Spread cannabis a single layer deep, in a covered casserole dish and bake for 40 minutes.
- Let cool.
Technically, this cannabis can now be consumed. Many people just grind it and add it into a fatty substance like avocado or they grind it and put it into capsules which allows them to swallow the herb, whole.
(The cannabinoids are fat soluble so if you prefer to ingest cannabis capsules, just make sure you eat some healthy fat just before you consume the capsules. This will ensure that your body will be able to absorb the cannabinoids efficiently.)
In conclusion, as long as you decarboxylate the cannabis you could technically eat cannabis as a salad ingredient and it would be medicinally active.
Weed salad: yields 4 servings. :D
(@englishtchrivy was missing the frog so I hope you all enjoyed his guest appearance, in my post.)
15 years ago, I was 45 lbs heavier than I am today.
8 years ago, I started eating cannabis everyday and 6 years ago, I added a full Paleo eating strategy to that lifestyle.
In addition to restoring optimal body weight, this lifestyle also drastically reduces the amount of inflammation present in the body. It is "highly" restorative.
I welcome your comments and I invite you to join me...there is always room for one more at my table. ;)
~ Rebecca Ryan
(I edited this post to correct information. The city that @englishtchrivy lives in is Arnhem, not Amsterdam as I mistakenly stated.)
Haha -- I'm glad to see another Weed Salad in a Culinary Challenge! I'm really impressed with your writing, too. You made all that nice and clear. Way to connect with the challenge theme, too! To Your Health!
Hahaha! Thank you @haphazard-hstead!!! Truth be told, you were the inspiration for the name I chose. I was thinking of you when I made the decision to enter the challenge this way, because I think that it is something that you would create and highlight, being that cannabis can be such a vivacious herb... :D
Here's to your health, too!
@rebeccaryan Information packed and loling hazard post!
This first - spot on not having carbs and that causing diabetes if you won't mind me being blatant now. That's why you didn't see any rice on the theme recipe post. If one wants to go on a diet - getting rid of the carbs would be a short cut.
Loling hazard? When I saw this I was loling hard at it and honestly .. it took me some time to weigh things out to acknowledge it or not since its more bird's feed than what I've served on the theme photo but since I am not the judge for this challenge and the judge has already commented and my role is to filter whether a post is plagiarized, properly labelled or not and all the must dos are done and since you complied on all that ... that part made it easy to write it here - Entry acknowledged!
I wish you good luck!
btw .. I live in Arnhem not in Amsterdam :) that's opposite of where I am - in the East
but its in the same country - The Netherlands
Thank you for accepting this entry. I did create it to be funny and as a culinary joke. (Especially since I can't seem to achieve over a $1 with my originally creations.) Such is life at the moment. I won't give up and will continue to support the Steemit Culinary Challenge.!
For anyone who may read this, the science behind the information is sound and not a joke. Many people are eating up to 40 of these cannabis capsules a day. Of course, they are spread out over 16 hours or so, but it's still the same volume as a small salad when looked at in terms of the size of plant material consumed. Thanks again @englishtchrivy. (I will edit my post to correct the city where you live in the Netherlands.)
@rebeccaryan no leave it
am glad I haven't unplugged
I was having a hard time validating it as wholesome so I did some digging and since you put out an ample amount it doesn't fall on the hazardous side so I don't have a choice but do :)
Now THAT's what I call a salad. This may seem incredibly dense, but when you cook it, do folks hanging about in the kitchen get a big wiggedy from the oven air? Or is it a low enough temperature to not cause this? Not that that would be a BAD thing, just curious. Thanks for the post and information.
Thanks for commenting @ddschteinn! :D
Actually, that's a great question and the answer is yes! Oven decarboxylation is very vapourous and you can "hot box" your kitchen quite nicely in the process. LOL!
"Cookin' away, with a large smile today". Think that's a little ditty from the progressive households of the TV 60's. Plus the oven is warmed up, just pop the pan of brownies in when done. Then again, that is not exactly on your diet plan, so nevermind ( :
Hahaha! Not to worry about me missing out on consuming those brownies because I can still it them. :)
That's the point of the entire post, really.
I just make them a little differently to lower the total amount of grams of carbohydrates/sugar in each piece. I use coconut oil to drive up the fat content and ground almonds and walnuts instead of white flour to drive up both the fat again, and the protein content. Then, I use medicated bee honey made with a strain called Girl Scout Cookies baked right into them. This is my preferred sweetener to use in that type of baking recipe because it produces a lower resting insulin rate after ingestion. It's a win-win scenario.
ANY way to make a brownie or snackcookie healthy is a win-win in my book. Thanks for sharing your expertise in these matters.
Trust me when I say I am very happy to do so @ddschteinn...LOL
I always have R&D on the go.
After eating those, i'll be bingeing due to hunger @rebeccaryan!!
Hahaha! Thanks for commenting @immarojas but I promise you, you will not want to eat your entire fridge if you consume the correct strain of cannabis.
@rebeccaryan Congrats!
That's awesome!
Not all cannabis can do that??
;)
No. Some strains are better than others. A strain called Girl Scout Cookies is excellent for it's THCV and THC content which works beautifully for this particular application.
Girl scout cookies sound yummy ;)
It is a delicious, award-winning strain with a great plant profile.
For anyone interested, you can read more about it here:
https://www.leafly.com/hybrid/girl-scout-cookie
The strain data shows that it tests positive for both the cannabinoids: THC and THCV.
LOL this is the future of my Instagram in Amsterdam - check out my breakfast guys!
We need more of such providers in the country. It's rice culture and sugary drinks around here. Incredibly tasty and fulfilling since I've grown up with such things, and surprisingly, there ain't much of a counter-culture going on except rather overpriced vegan outlets - even making them myself would be rather costly.
LOL! You just need to eat or vape a small amount of cannabis that's been decarboxylated at the correct temperature, 3 times a week @kevinwong. Funny but true.
I was going to throw some Maceo plex in the post for your listening pleasure, but I couldn't think of a good way to incorporate it. If we find you the correct strain and pair it with the right music, just image what you could get done and how many calories you would burn. ;)
Bookmarked for future reference when I get the chance to do so, for sure ;)
The plant medicine is quite remarkable and it's starting to become backed-up by more medical science, as each day passes. Among a plethora of other things, it is currently being studied for it's effective use in the treatment of Type II diabetes. I have personally witnessed people who have adopted a ketogenic/cannabis eating lifestyle who have been able to reverse Type II diabetes and no longer require pharmaceutical drug therapy for the chronic treatment of that metabolic disorder. My hope is that others may read this thread and look into the topic a little further. It is giving people their power and their lives back. :)