Day: May 27, 2022

Tough Mama’s 24 Best Munchies When High

Published on May 27, 2022

stoner snacks pizza

by Cyrus Grant

Tough Mama loves her weed strong, and her munchies abundant. Despite being a gorilla, bananas aren’t the only thing Mama likes to eat when high, so we’re here today to share Tough Mama’s favorite stoner snacks.

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Cereal

We’re hitting cereal first because it’s the ultimate wake ‘n bake choice, and because it’s great morning, day, and night. While the only essentials for cereal are your hands and cereal of choice, making it with milk is a two-for-one, helping with both the munchies AND dry mouth. Mama’s go-to’s:

  • Cinnamon Toast Crunch – Not sure if it’s the cinnamon, the sugar, or the hit of nostalgia that comes with a bite of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, but this is the cereal munchie of choice.
  • Cocoa Puffs – The trick here is to let the Cocoa Puffs sit in the milk long enough that you get a delicious chocolate milk bonus once you’re done eating.
  • Frosted Flakes – This is the cereal of choice if the milk carton is empty. Simple, sweet, and easy to eat with your hands.
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Chips (and Puffs)

Chips are an easy pick for some of the best munchies when high. We love the crunch, we love the salt, and we love how damn easy it is to pop open a bag and just go to town. (Kinda like how easy it is to pick up a Tough Mama pre-roll and get super stoned.) You’re definitely going to want a beverage after putting away that family-size bag though. A bunch of weed plus a bunch of salt will leave your mouth dryer than the Mojave Desert. Mama’s chips of choice:

  • Flaming Hot Cheetos – Be careful though, putting down a big bag of these babies is a sure-fire way to feel some pain the next day on
uhh the back end. 
  • Nacho Cheese Doritos – Why make nachos when you can just open a bag of Doritos? Mama says work smarter, not harder.
  • Takis – Kind of like a Cheeto and a Dorito hooked up and made a beautiful snack baby. Takis are yet another rolled-up consumable Mama loves. 
  • FunyunsWhat even are Funyuns? Not sure, but they’re delicious when you’re high, so they make the list.
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Ice Cream 

Ice cream is great whether you’re happy, sad, or super-duper stoned. Something about the sweet and cold just hit different when you have weed-induced munchies. While pretty much any ice cream will do, our go-to’s are from Ben & Jerry’s. Partly because they rock, and also because their ice creams kind of sound like weed strains. Mama’s picks:

  • Half Baked – Nothing beats Half Baked when we’re full-on baked. Honestly, though, it’s no coincidence that the best ice cream flavor known to mankind is a nod to stoners.
  • Phish Food – Named after Phish the band, who have openly shared how cannabis has helped them with the creative process.
  • Cherry Garcia – A tribute to Jerry Garcia of the Grateful dead, this ice cream was made to be stoner food.
  • Chunky Monkey – It’s banana ice cream, so of course, Mama loves it!
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Full-on Food 

Sometimes the munchies are more of a gorilla-sized hunger, and when that’s the case, we want some actual food to get us right. While any meal or batch of leftovers will work, we’re looking at the best quick fixes to the black hole we have forming in our stomachs. Mama loves:

  • California Burritos – Rolled up and full of stuff we love, burritos and joints are both absolute necessities. Mama loves the California burrito with the fries inside to really lock those munchies down.
  • Pizza – We always love some pizza, but when the munchies hit, a large turns into a personal size pizza. Get your own slice(s).
  • Loaded Fries – The perfect example of how to take something amazing and make it even better. Fries topped with melted cheese and your meat of choice, no brainer.
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Fast Food

Let’s be real, fast food is stoner food. Sure, it can be for anyone, but there’s a reason fast food joints are open late and offer literal boxes of food for a few bucks: It’s for us. When Mama wants some food, and she wants it fast, these are the spots:

  • In N’ Out – Being in California has countless advantages, one of them being the munchies paradise that is In N’ Out. Mama goes wild for the animal-style burger and fries.
  • Taco Bell – Probably a guilty pleasure for many, Taco Bell just has too many top-tier options to pass up. They even have a Nacho Cheese Doritos shell taco – talk about a two-for-one.
  • Jack in the Box – They literally have Late Night Munchie Meals. Hmm, wonder who that’s for?
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Grocery Snacks 

They say never go to the store hungry. Well then we probably shouldn’t go to the store high, but where else would we go for snacks? The grocery store is a magical place, where the cure for munchies sprawls through aisles and aisles. These are the items Mama looks for while roaming the munchies mecca:

  • Cheez-Its – There’s definitely a cheese theme going on with a lot of these munchies, so obviously THE cheese cracker was going to make the list.
  • Pizza Rolls – There’s nothing like ignoring the directions and dumping as many pizza rolls as possible onto a plate to cure your munchies. Watch out though, these little suckers are full of pure magma fresh out of the microwave.
  • Pop-Tarts – Pop ‘em in the toaster
or don’t, the ultimate fast breakfast (or late night) munchie. Mama likes brown sugar cinnamon, but there are like 20 flavors and when you have the munchies, any of them will do.
  • Bagel Bites – When you can’t get your hands on some actual pizza, these mini-pizza/mini-bagel hybrids can be the hero we need.
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Next-level Munchies

Sometimes getting high gives us the munchies AND major creative energy. When this happens, next-level munchies are born. This is the research and development department of snacking, and while it’s always a discovery in process, these are some of Mama’s favorite creations:

  • Pop-Tart ice cream sandwich – So simple, yet so good. Take your favorite Pop-Tart and ice cream flavors, put a couple of scoops between the two Pop-Tarts, and boom — gourmet ice cream sandwich in seconds.
  • Doritos super nachos – If just having nacho cheese Doritos doesn’t fill the nacho-sized hole in your stomach, use these Doritos as the base for full-on nachos. We’re talking melted cheese, maybe some bacon crumbles or ground beef, and your seasoning of choice (Mama likes an easy blend of garlic powder, salt, and pepper).
  • PB&J milkshake – We love a PB&J sandwich and we love a milkshake, so naturally we love to put them together. Just put some vanilla ice cream, peanut butter,  jelly, and a little milk in a blender and you’re set. (If you like a thicker shake, go heavy on the ice cream and light on the milk.)  

Did reading this article make you kind of hungry? Us too. So make sure to stock up at the store so you aren’t left with an empty stomach the next time you enjoy one of Tough Mama’s pre-rolls or vape carts!  

Oh, and let us know if Mama left out any of your favorite munchies! (And feel free to share any strange concoctions you swear by when you’re high.)

Ask Mama: Why Does Weed Make Your Eyes Red?

Published on May 27, 2022

high eyes

Oh, honey, you’ve got those high eyes, and that’s just not gonna work for your first shift, the Zoom call that could’ve been an email, or the wedding you forgot you agreed to go to six months ago. 

Like most of the good things about weed, high eyes happen because of THC, and we know weed is a well-tolerated remedy – so, no, your eyes ain’t gonna fall out no matter how eye-poppin’ that strain is. 

Now let Mama tell you what’s really going on, and what you can do about that mean ol’ stoner eye.

What Are High Eyes?

Mama doesn’t get high eyes, because her deep brown gorilla eyes contain only the multitudes of nature and a quiet whisper beckoning you back to the ways of your primal ancestors. But as a dolphin-smooth human, you may get them when you smoke weed – it’s a common thing confirmed by both anecdotal evidence and scientific studies.

Just to be clear, when Mama says “high eyes” or “stoner eyes” or what have you, Mama means the reddened sclera (the white part) of the eye, the sort of glassy look and the dilated pupils you may experience when you smoke a bunch of weed. We’re not getting into hard drugs, optical ailments, or anything else that makes your eyes red, but isn’t related to cannabis. (Mama doesn’t know what you do in your downtime, OK?)

What They Aren’t

Let’s get something straight right off the bat: people used to think that it was the smoke – a well-known eye-reddener – from, uh, smoking weed that made eyes go all red. But you may have noticed in recent years that we’ve got nearly smokeless “stealth” vapes. We’ve got more types of edible snacks than you can shake a 7-11 at, we’ve got tinctures, we’ve got shots, we’ve got all kinds of totally smoke-free methods to get you nice n’ high. And they still might make your eyes red. 

In case you haven’t figured it out yet? It’s not the smoke, ya’ll.

Why Does Weed Make Your Eyes Red?

So why does weed make your eyes red? That’s simple: vasodilation. Next question, Mama’s got places to be.

But
What’s Vas-o-di-la-tion?

You’re still here? Man, Mama really wishes you paid a little more attention in Intro to Human Physiology.

First off, it’s vasodilation, not Vaseline. Vasodilation is just the dilation – which basically means the widening, enlarging, or opening up – of your blood vessels. According to the same type of science people who taught Mama’s great aunt sign language, THC (or tetrahydrocannabinol, the active cannabinoid in weed that makes you feel high) interacts with the body via the cannabinoid receptors in the endocannabinoid system. That’s a lot of canna words, but basically, this built-in system is responsible for all the physical responses that happen when you smoke (or otherwise consume) weed.

One of those responses is to create an overall decrease in blood pressure. To do that, the endocannabinoid system widens up – or dilates – your blood vessels and capillaries, which you’ve got a bunch of in your eyeballs. This is what causes your eyes to take on a red, bloodshot look. It’s also what might make you feel lightheaded when you’re high, and the depressurizing is exactly why some glaucoma patients use cannabis as a treatment.   

How to Get Rid of High Eyes

Regular ol’ high eyes are more of a nuisance than anything to worry about, it’d be great if you could leave the house looking like a respectable member of society. While, ya know, still being a little high. Ideally.

Mama says that’s totally possible, and here’s how:

  • Use eye drops specifically formulated to reduce redness (you’ll see that right on the label). Just be sure to use them sparingly – only when you really need them – as relying on them like a crutch can cause your eyes to develop a dependency or lower their effectiveness.
  • Hydrate while you smoke up. This is just about always good advice (expect no less from this gorilla), but especially so if you regularly experience high eyes. Cannabis itself doesn’t cause dehydration, but smoking just about anything does. And dehydration doesn’t help with the whole bloodshot eyes thing.
  • Have a nice cup of coffee or tea. As a stimulant, caffeine is a vasoconstrictor. Remember vasodilation? Well, this is like the opposite. Vasoconstriction helps close or tighten blood vessels, which can reduce redness in the eyes. A splash of cold water or an ice pack around the eyes can have a similar effect 

Another surefire remedy? Just straight-up time. The people at the American Academy of Ophthalmology are pretty smart, and they estimate that high eyes typically only last a maximum of three to four hours after getting high. So drink a tall glass of water, smoke your pre-roll, and try not to worry so much – stress is a lot more dangerous than a little case of stoner eye.

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