By Olivia Dillingham

To read the rest of this story, pick up the Spring 2019 Almanac

Some tips when choosing your CBD products:

• If you are using CBD because you want to cut down your
anxiety, your inflammation, or anything else, try not to use it as a fix-all; rather,
look holistically at what you are putting into your body and how you are
structuring your life, and make small lifestyle changes that might work in
tandem with CBD to give you beautiful results (diet, meditation or movement
routines, for example).

• Pay attention to your dosage and the way you are consuming
CBD. Keep a journal, and jot down how you feel as you increase and decrease
dosage, as you use CBD in different ways; start to develop intuition around
when your body feels best.

• Do your research around the company(ies) you are buying
CBD from. Do you care if the company is big or small? Does local production
matter to you? Who is the company marketing to? Know your values. “With
cannabis and really with any kind of consumption, you should know your
history,” says Burnett. “It’s more than just using it right now. Think about
how they are marketing on a surface level; what images do they have on their
Instagram? If you aren’t including people of color, people who are differently
abled, people who have different body sizes, those on the gender spectrum—and
only have one idea of who their product should be for—for me personally that is
a big turnoff, because humans come in all sizes, shapes, demographics, and socioeconomic
backgrounds. When I am buying things, I want to be thoughtful, inclusive, and
conscious about who I support and who they support.”

• History. It is also important to know the history of the
stigmatization of cannabis and to understand that, though CBD is trending right
now, the whole plant is beneficial to our bodies—we need the full spectrum.
“Every part of the plant has benefits,” says Swatosh, “from its roots to its
flowers.”

• Do your research around how CBD is best used—what carrier
oils are best for use on the skin, for example. “All carrier oils are not
equal,” says Burnett, “so learning what is absorbed by the skin vs. what should
be taken sublingually, for example, is important.” Even if it is all-natural,
it may not be the best oil for your skin. You are welcome to request lab tests
from any company that you buy products from!

• In order to take in the benefits of CBD, you do need to
maintain that homeostasis, meaning that you are using the same amount every day
(i.e having some in your latte one day a week will do nothing for you). Knowing
this, make sure the routine you are implementing with CBD feels sustainable and
affordable to you, whether you are using it in a face oil or putting it in your
tea.

Not only is CBD good for bodies; when farmed sustainably it
is also good for the soil and for small farms, which are near and dear to
Beekman 1802’s heart as an active supporter of local farming. Local farmers are
using regenerative agriculture practices to grow hemp. Hudson Hemp, for example, is an
association of farmers in the Hudson Valley that grows hemp to produce hemp oil
distillate and CBD isolate for companies making CBD products. They use organic
processes that mimic the earth’s natural system, and in this way are active
stewards of healthier soil and planet as they pioneer the distillation of CBD
to its purest form.

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