Why Do I Want to Eat an Entire Cheesecake After One Gummy?
CYA Disclaimer:
This is not medical advice. It’s a cheeky, slightly irreverent, and entirely unqualified breakdown of why cannabis sometimes turns you into a snack-obsessed raccoon.
Talk to your doctor. Or your mom. Or your mom’s doctor. Or someone with more letters after their name than me.
Confessions of a Hungry Texan with a Joint and a Fork
Full disclosure: I’m a 6'1" Whiskey Drinking, Cannabis Consuming Texan who clocks in around 300 lbs and obviously loves to eat. I have the sexy dadbod to prove it. You know what they say—never trust a skinny chef. I might not be a chef, but when it comes to cannabis and good food, I know what I’m talking about.
Truth is, I love eating with cannabis so much I started a company built around it. Years ago, a counselor once asked me what I wanted to do with my life. My answer? "I want to spend the rest of my life having great food, great cocktails, great cannabis, with great connection, and great laughter with my friends and family." So I did what any stubborn, food-loving Texan would do—I built Dexter Co. to do exactly that.
So... Why Does Cannabis Make Me Ravenous?
Because cannabis is like that one friend who convinces you to order dessert, even though you swore you were "just having a salad."
THC (the part of cannabis that gets you high) binds to these things called CB1 receptors in your brain. They're part of your endocannabinoid system—aka the internal DJ that controls your mood, memory, pain, and yes, hunger.
When THC shows up, it's like a surprise party for your appetite. Suddenly:
- Your sense of smell and taste go full Gordon Ramsay.
- Food tastes like it was handcrafted by angels.
- Your brain floods with dopamine (hello, joy).
- And your body says, “Starving. Must eat. All of it.” Even if you literally just had tacos.
Dinner party trivia: Researchers once found that when THC hits the olfactory bulb—the brain’s smell center—it intensifies your ability to smell and taste food, which makes that cold leftover pizza taste like a Michelin-starred meal. Wildest part? Your brain is reacting as if you're starving, even if you're full. Evolutionarily speaking, it’s like cannabis tricks your inner caveman into thinking, "Better eat everything now, winter is coming." Soria-Gómez et al., Nature Neuroscience, 2014
Not All Cannabis Makes You Munch
Here’s where things get interesting. Not all strains give you the munchies.
Some strains are like, “Let’s chill, write poetry, maybe reorganize the garage.” Others are like, “Let’s inhale everything in your fridge, freezer, pantry, glove box, and emergency snack stash.”
This difference comes down to the mix of cannabinoids and terpenes in the plant. It’s like the personality of the strain: some are laid-back stoners, some are hangry goblins, and some are responsible adults who keep you productive and snack-neutral.
Want to skip the snack attack?
- Look for strains high in CBD or THCV (that rare cannabinoid with a vibe like, "You’re fine, you don’t need that second cinnamon roll").
- Seek out terpenes like humulene or pinene, which tend to keep hunger in check.
- Or better yet, ask your budtender. Seriously—they’ve heard every snack-fueled horror story and know what not to sell you if you’re trying to avoid becoming a human Hoover.
Pro Tip: Durban Poison and Harlequin are solid choices if you want that uplifted feeling without suddenly needing to deep-fry something at 11 p.m. Cochrane Review, 2021
Tricks to Outsmart the Munchies
If cannabis turns you into a snack-seeking missile, don’t panic. Here are a few life-saving hacks to keep your hands out of the cookie jar:
- Eat a real meal before you partake. Not just a snack. A meal. One that involves utensils.
- Stock up on decent snacks. Grapes, nuts, popcorn, apple slices—stuff that won’t make you feel like a garbage raccoon the next morning.
- Hydrate. Half the time, you’re not hungry—you’re just dehydrated and confusing it for hunger because your brain is distracted by how good peanut butter smells right now.
- Brush your teeth. No really, it’s weirdly effective. Nothing says “don’t eat that leftover pizza” like a mouth full of minty regret.
Keep a plan. Keep it light. And maybe don’t go to Costco while high. That’s how you end up with a lifetime supply of jalapeño cashews and six gallons of queso.
When the Munchies Are More Than a Joke
Here’s the real twist: sometimes the munchies aren’t a punchline. They’re a lifeline.
Take my mom, for example. She’s had health issues that make her nauseous, exhausted, and uninterested in food. And when she doesn’t eat? It’s not just a missed meal. It’s a chain reaction—she skips food, then skips meds, gets dehydrated, and before we know it, we’re sitting in an ER trying to get her back to baseline with IV fluids and soup.
But with cannabis—just a little—she gets hungry. Not stoner-hungry. Not let’s-bake-brownies-at-2AM hungry. Just hungry enough to eat a bowl of soup, sip some water, and take her pills. For her, it’s a small microdose in the morning when she gets up, another around lunch, and one more with dinner. She’s not high. She’s not growing out her dreads. But she is hungrier—and that small shift has taken her from a pattern of monthly ER trips with IV fluids to, well… let’s just say it’s been a while.
The same plant that gives you cravings for a bag of Doritos can also keep someone out of the hospital. That’s not just fascinating. That’s powerful.
And it’s not just chemo patients or extreme cases. It’s aging parents. Post-surgery recovery. Chronic illness. People with depression or anxiety or pain who forget to eat because food just doesn’t sound good. In those cases, a little cannabis-induced munchie magic might be exactly what the doctor forgot to order.
Dinner party trivia: One 2015 study found that states with legal cannabis had lower rates of obesity than those without. So while cannabis may make you snack a little more, it’s not necessarily making you gain weight. Anderson et al., Health Economics, 2015
You're Not Broken. You're Just High.
Cannabis doesn’t turn you into a snack monster on purpose. It just gives your body a little nudge. Sometimes that nudge says, “Try those leftovers.” Sometimes it says, “You need fuel to feel human again.”
Either way—know your body, know your strain, and have a game plan. And if you do eat an entire cheesecake, call it science. You were doing research.
