Remember sour worms and gummy bears from good days gone by? Of course you do. The rough texture that becomes slimy and soft as you let stringy pieces of sugar melt away on your tongue…the memories alone make you crave the sweet sensation of these tasty treats.
But as you grew up, people started to tell you that you needed to eat healthier. You can’t eat the junk that comes in a plastic package, because “it’ll rot your teeth and your brain.” Shame on you for even thinking of the delicious goodness of Sour Patch Kids.
CBD gummies, on the other hand, changed the game. Candy, chocolate, and specifically gummies are among the most popular items in the growing market of edible CBD goods. The challenge now is figuring out what’s good and what should get tossed. CBD doesn’t come cheap, so when you’re making a decision about what to buy, don’t be impulsive and more importantly, don’t get ripped off. Make sure you properly vet the brands out there that are pushing CBD gummies.
We know the choices are overwhelming, so we’ve tried tons of different kinds of sour and sugary pieces of CBD candy – bears, worms, frogs and plain ol’cubes. At CBD expositions, samples of products flood convention halls, direct from various CBD retail stores and curated CBD boxes where you get a variety of surprise samples each month. We put together a review to share our team’s consensus of 6 popular CBD gummy brands on the market. Each gummy was evaluated, based on 4 key factors:
- Taste/scent – (goal: we would eat or use this if there wasn’t CBD in it)
- Price per mg – (goal: doesn’t break the bank, get the best bang for your buck)
- Lab reports – (goal: properly tested for undetected harmful ingredients)
- Full spectrum/broad spectrum/isolate – (goal: we want that Entourage Effect)
Here are our honest reviews of the best and the worst:
1. Best: CBD NYC Mini 20 mg Bears
At 20 mg each and with 30 pieces per bottle, these gummy bears offer a cheaper price per mg of CBD than any edible we’ve seen ($49.99 retail price for 30 pieces at 20 mg per gummy). On top of getting kudos for being on the cheaper end, these baby bears are super effective and tasty. They come in an assortment of fruit flavors and go a long way to help you ease tension. The teeny tiny size doesn’t make you feel bad about having 2 or 3…or 4. There is no aftertaste or sugar coating which can scratch up your tongue like many gummies out there. These are void of THC and gluten, and sourced from non-GMO, organic USA-grown hemp.
Lab reports are posted on their site, so we knew exactly what we were getting.
These bad boys are broad spectrum, our favorite kind of CBD (more to come on that in a future blog post).
2. Best: Smokiez High Clarity 25 mg Hemp Gummies Chew
Oregon-based Smokiez gummies provide 25 mg of CBD per piece in their chews (10 calories each, including 2 grams of protein). One pack has 10 pieces of chews (gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan and sugar-free options). The soy-free proprietary formula is something special despite being void of THC. These sweets are perfectly cut, soft and chewy. With a shelf-life of 1 year, you are safe to store these without them going bad, although let’s be honest – you’ll likely ravish them much sooner. Our team prefers two pieces in one sitting. The favorites of all flavors are sour watermelon and jamberry (which tastes like a blueberry, strawberry and raspberry mash-up). The least favored among reviewers was straight raspberry. The only downside was that we called in and wanted to find out if these were isolate, broad spectrum and full spectrum. No one picked up their phone – we only got a voicemail box. Note to Smokiez – invest in customer service!!
A single serving is one 25 mg gummy, with only ten pieces per package. Each package will cost you $24.95. Lab results can be found here.
3. Favored, but not a favorite: Upstate Elevator Co CBD Worms 30 mg
The fruity flavor tart worms from this Vermont-based company are awesome. Each wiggly worm has 30 mg of CBD, so they are pretty potent. Also included in one serving is 100% of your daily recommended dosage of Vitamin C, which is always nice. There is no THC or artificial preservatives; other ingredients include organic carrot juice and turmeric. There’s also no hemp aftertaste but lots of sugar on the worms. These are isolate hemp gummies, but we had to call in to find that out. We didn’t find that information listed anywhere on their site.
There’s 30 mg per gummy, and 25 gummies per bottle. Each bottle will cost you $69.99. Lab reports can be found here.
4. Favored, but not a favorite: Kushie Bites CBD Variety Pack
You get 1000 mg of CBD in this $40 variety pack of gummy chews, worms, bears, rings and one big octopus. What’s there not to like? The Colorado-made CBD company hooks you up with so many options with and without sugar on top. Each gummy has anywhere between 25-50 mg of CBD. You get 20 pieces in the variety pack, which equates to about 550 calories. Although they are gluten, fat and dairy-free, these do taste much sweeter than our favorite CBD gummies. The calorie count speaks to that, too. Our favorite in the pack is the rainbow that looks like you twisted up a sugared rainbow sour strip and trimmed it into a few pieces. Keep in mind, these are isolate. We had to call their representatives to figure that out – note to Kushie Bites, list that on your site!!
5. Needs Improvement: Just CBD 7 mg Emoji Gummies
When you are having a bad day, and are looking for CBD gummies, if they have a smiley face, you expect to start smiling. Just CBD just doesn’t do the trick. Although the branding is cute – these emoji gummies are coated with sugar and the flavors don’t taste very different. The 7 mg of CBD per moji is lower then most edibles so you need to have a lot for them to be effective, and the sugar from 5 or more can be annoying on your tongue. This is not a terrible option for first-timers who want an extremely low dose of CBD per gummy. These gummies have isolate hemp in them – you won’t get the entourage effect, but you will get CBD delivered into your system in its purest form.
These gummies will run you $40, but you can probably find a Groupon deal and get them at a discount. Lab reports are here.
6. Needs Improvement: Joy Organics 20 mg
These 8-ingredient serene orchard gummies have a subtle apple flavor and very hempy aftertaste. The high CBD content coupled with minimal additive ingredients likely create the residual taste after you chew. We wish that Joy would do something about the bitter taste, it’s not a serene flavor despite the clean ingredients and pleasant chew.
A 15-pack with 20 mg per chew will run you $44.95. These are broad spectrum, so you’ll get the benefits of that. But, we advise that you choose one of our favorites and save your money.
So, that’s a wrap for our gummies post! We hope you liked our breakdown of the best and worst in CBD gummies. Please leave us a comment below! Until next time… 😉
