Best CBD Gummies
For those who want to experience the benefits of the best CBD oils while satisfying their sweet tooth, CBD gummies are the food of the gods. But how, in the overcrowded world of CBD confectionery, do you find the best CBD gummies?
Just CBD Gummies (250mg)
Sweet, chewy, and a veritable cornucopia of flavor awaits with the JustCBD CBD Gummies! Scrumptious gummy bears, delectable apple rings and juicy red cherries are just a few of the delicious shapes and flavors awaiting you! Add some fruity taste to your normal CBD experience, potentially perfect for assisting with your personal wellness goals, and grab a 250mg jar of JustCBD Gummies today! Excellent for on-the-go use!
- 1 x Just CBD Gummies
- All Natural CBD
- Non-GMO
Hemp Bombs CBD Gummies 5-Count
Premium broad-spectrum CBD is blended with delicious gummies for a tasty CBD treat you won’t want to miss in Hemp Bombs’ CBD Gummies! Need a go-anywhere CBD snack that tastes great? These 5 gummies offer 15mg of rich CBD in each one, and are potentially perfect for reaching your CBD goals. Grab the Hemp Bombs CBD Gummies for your DirectVapor cart today!
- 1 x Hemp Bombs CBD Gummies 5-Count
- Contains Zero THC
- Serving Size: 1-2 gummies
- Sugar, Corn Syrup, Gelatin, Citric Acid, Calcium Lactate, Silicon Dioxide, Natural & Artificial Flavors
Just CBD Gummies (250mg)
It’s GMO-free, with no artificial sweeteners, animal gelatin or corn syrup, and uses full spectrum CBD. The Hemp Gummy Bears by CBDfx make for a CBD treat you’re sure to love. Each berry-flavored gummy contains 5mg of CBD oil and is a potentially perfect way to get the CBD you want, and for potentially achieving your personal wellness goals. Sweet, juicy, it’s a CBD experience that’s too good to miss! Add the CBDfx Hemp Gummies to your cart today!
- 1 x CBDfx Gummies (60 ct bottle)
- 60 gummy bears with 5 milligrams of CBD each
- 100% organically grown full-spectrum CBD
- 100% Vegan
- No Artificial Sweeteners
- Flavor Profile: Mixed Berries
The Best CBD Gummies: How Do They Work?
CBD — or cannabidiol — is one of 113 cannabinoids that come from cannabis plants. First discovered in the 1940’s, it’s only recently that CBD has come into the spotlight. It began with a growing swell of anecdotal evidence of CBD’s benefits. People claimed that it helped with their epilepsy, pain, anxiety, and even diseases like cancer.
The scientific research is in the early stages, but even scientists are cautiously enthusiastic. Whether or not we’ve discovered the actual plant of immortality, there’s no denying that CBD seems to be helping a lot of people with a lot of different conditions.
So how does it work?
The answer to this lies in our endocannabinoid systems. Composed of receptors and chemicals, the endocannabinoid system maintains balance within your body by helping to regulate emotions, pain, sleep, mood, and appetite.
CBD actually works through multiple mechanisms, but many of its effects come from interactions with CB1 and CB2 receptors in your endocannabinoid system. And the way CBD relates to those receptors is unique.
For example, when THC (CBD’s cannabinoid cousin) is introduced to the body, it binds with the CB1 receptor. This binding action is what makes you high when you smoke marijuana.
CBD, on the other hand, can’t bind to the CB1 receptor. In fact, it has a low affinity for either receptor. Instead, it influences them in indirect ways.
The upshot of all this is that CBD can’t make you high. And not only will it not make you high, but it will even dampen the effects of THC (by changing the shape of the CB1 receptor). So it’s actually kind of a buzz-kill.
CBD’s wide range of apparent benefits — from reducing inflammation to neuroprotection — combined with its lack of psychoactivity is why it is the subject of so much scientific research right now.
But to experience the benefits of CBD for yourself, you’ll need to find a high-quality product.
Cannabidiol Sourcing
To find the best CBD gummies, you really do have to go all the way to the source — where and how the hemp is grown. Whether or not you eat 100% organic food, growing methods are a really important thing to pay attention to when it comes to buying CBD products.
This is because hemp is a bio-accumulator, meaning that it absorbs substances that are present in the soil (like pesticides). Hemp literally pulls environmental contaminants out of the soil. In fact, it’s so effective at soil-cleaning that it’s even being used in Chernobyl as a part of phytoremediation efforts. This matters when it comes to pesticides obviously, but it also pertains to heavy metals (from industrial fertilizers) that might exist in the soil.
Because the USDA doesn’t issue an organic certification for most hemp (unless it’s grown in a state-run pilot program), you’ll need to contact the company about whether or not pesticides are being used.
Third-party lab reports can also be really good sources of information. Many companies only display the cannabinoid content on their reports, but some do offer the test results for heavy metals and other contaminants. If those results aren’t on the lab reports that are displayed on the website, it never hurts to contact the company directly.
The importance of soil is another reason to make sure your CBD oil was extracted from U.S. grown hemp. Hemp from China and countries in Eastern Europe is cheap and readily available. But regulations are just stronger here, due to the Federal Farm Bill of 2014, which provides an avenue for states to legally set up a license and certification process for farmers to go through.
Ingredients and Extraction
Obviously, the best CBD Gummies should contain very high-quality CBD. This means that it should be grown organically, preferably in the U.S., with third-party lab reports that attest to concentration levels.
In terms of CBD quality, extraction is another thing to pay attention to. CO2 and ethanol are both good, clean CBD extraction methods, and currently there’s no industry consensus about which is better (though people have strong opinions on both sides).
But CBD gummies contain more than CBD, and since all the gummies on our ranking conform to the above standards of sourcing and extraction, it’s worth looking closer at the other ingredients.
To begin with, CBD gummies need to be sweet. The amount of sweetness is probably going to vary widely depending on personal taste, but the sweetness is definitely a big part of the appeal. Sweeteners are a hotly contested subject, but without going too far into the battle of the sugars, we can probably all agree that one of the very worst is high fructose corn syrup (although agave nectar seems to be up there with a lot of dieticians).
The amount of sugar is worth looking into as well. The best CBD Gummy is going to hit the sweet spot of deliciousness without taking you down the road of the sugar coma. Sometimes less is more.
And what is a gummy without color? The mind boggles. Color we must have, but preferably not the kind with numbers. The biggest culprits here are colors like red 3, red 40, yellow 5, yellow 6, blue 2, and caramel coloring (sounds so innocent, right?).
Ditto for flavors. Although, to be honest, the term “natural flavors,” which you might see on a list of ingredients, is referring to flavoring that is so highly processed that it is hardly a step above the “artificial” flavor variety. But they do originate in real food and spice sources. If that helps.
If you’re leading a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle, thickeners are another ingredient to pay attention to. Gelatin is the cheapest and easiest way to get the ideal gummy consistency, but it is an animal product. Vegan thickeners include pectin (the most common), cornstarch, and tapioca, among others.
Gummies: Infused vs. Coated
CBD gummies for children
You might assume that all CBD gummies have a similar manufacturing process, but you would assume wrongly. Like most aspects of the world of CBD, there is little that you can actually assume. Best practices do exist, but whether or not companies follow them is entirely up to them. One common practice among CBD gummy manufacturers is to make the gummies first, without the CBD, then spray them with a coat of CBD (or roll them in CBD isolate) before they are bottled.
The practice of coating gummies is mainly problematic because it makes it exceedingly difficult to ensure an even distribution of CBD. This means that in a bottle of CBD-coated gummies, you’ll probably have gummies with significantly more and less than what the bottle claims.
If a company does coat their gummies with CBD, look extra closely at third party tests of their gummy products — but keep in mind that it’s difficult to accurately test a coated product.
The alternative is to infuse the gummies with CBD oil, mixing it in (and hopefully mixing it very well) with the other ingredients. This process not only means that the CBD is more evenly distributed, but it is better protected from heat and light so it has a longer shelf life. And a longer shelf life means that you’re more likely to be ingesting the amount of CBD that is labeled on the bottle.
Keep in mind that even in an infused CBD gummy, the CBD can still be unevenly distributed. So it’s always a good idea to check third-party lab reports before purchasing.
CBD Bioavailability
To state the obvious, your body first needs to absorb CBD before it begins to work. And there are many available ways to get it into your body. You can take it orally (either sublingually or ingested), topically (through your skin), vape it into your lungs, and even, for the more adventurous among us, via suppositories.
That sounds simple enough, but not all methods of taking CBD are equal when it comes to how much your body is able to absorb. The medical term for this is bioavailability, and there is a definite hierarchy here.
At the top of the bioavailability pyramid is intravenous administration, but we’ll bypass a discussion of that since it’s hardly a recommended way of taking CBD. Vaping and sublingual tinctures are the next step down from literally sticking it directly into your bloodstream. These methods allow CBD to enter into your bloodstream in a fairly direct way, bypassing the digestive process. Just as importantly, sublingual and inhaled forms skip the first pass metabolism of the liver, meaning more the CBD is able to reach the cells before the liver starts breaking it down.
Ingesting (eating or swallowing) CBD is arguably the easiest way to take CBD, but it actually has a relatively low bioavailability. The numbers on this vary, but studies have shown that the bioavailability of ingested CBD to be from between 6% up to a high of 20%. So if you take 10mg of CBD, you can expect to actually benefit from between .6mg up to 2mg of what you swallowed.
Those aren’t great numbers, although there’s evidence that taking CBD orally in the presence of dietary fats (preferably saturated fats) can increase bioavailability significantly. But that won’t help you in the case of CBD gummies — unless you take your favorite kind of dietary oil with it, which seems weird but not impossible.
So why take CBD gummies? There are certainly more efficient ways of getting CBD into your body, but ingesting CBD also has its perks. For example, it does have the benefit of lasting longer within your body. Vaping and tinctures work fast, but don’t last as long. So if you’re trying to keep a more constant, slow-acting, low dose of CBD in your body, eating a gummy may be a good way to go.
And then there’s the deliciousness, and let’s just be honest about that. They taste good — or they should. And they’re colorful. And fun. And portable. And discreet.
Full-spectrum, Broad-spectrum, or Isolate?
There are a lot of options out there when it comes to CBD Gummies, and one of those choices centers around the presence or absence of THC. For those who are new to the world of CBD, here’s the breakdown of these terms:
Full-spectrum CBD oil also contains other minor cannabinoids (including small amounts of THC) and terpenes, which give hemp its distinctive smell and taste.
Broad-spectrum CBD oil contains minor cannabinoids and terpenes, but no THC.
CBD isolate should be pure (99%+) CBD, with no other cannabinoids or terpenes present at all.
Keep in mind that even a full-spectrum CBD oil should by law, (according to the 2014 Farm Bill) contain no more than 0.3% THC. That is a tiny amount of THC which will not cause psychoactivity — it won’t make you high.
So why would you want THC to be present at all? Well, if you’ve ever heard of the entourage effect, this is what we’re talking about. There’s some evidence that cannabinoids (and terpenes) work better in concert with each other, rather than when they’re isolated in their pure forms.
There’s been some scientific research on the entourage effect (like this oft-cited study), but, like many things related to CBD, the scientific jury is still out on this one — the research is just too slim. The anecdotal evidence is pretty strong, though, which shouldn’t be ignored.
On the other hand, there are some people who just need to avoid THC altogether. If, for example, you have to take a drug test for work, even small amounts of THC could cause problems for you. THC can build up in the fat cells of your body, so there’s a chance that if you’re taking a full-spectrum product on a regular basis, THC could show up on a drug test.
People who have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder or panic disorder might need to avoid THC altogether as well. In these cases, a broad-spectrum or isolate product is exactly what you want.
The other point to make when it comes to any kind of CBD product is that cannabinoid content can vary dramatically, depending on how careful the company is about consistent concentration. There are companies selling “CBD gummies” that literally contain no CBD. Or much, much more than they report. Or they might contain much higher levels of THC than they should.
This is why looking at third-party lab tests is so important. If you want to feel confident that you know what you’re getting, don’t buy CBD products from companies that don’t make third-party results available.
