It IS a scary game of guessing Bud, at least it is for me. Also, just as Baron says, there are some horrifying standards for our food. For instance one that got me was regarding a favorite brand (was) of ready made crackers. In the recipe there is an acceptable allowance for rodent feces and bug parts. Ghaaghhh! An experience 15 years ago that made me really commit to grow my own and make my own edibles was when I visited a person who was at end of life and using cannabis during her passing. While there she opened a packet someone brought her and looked it over thru a loupe, and showed me how to look. There was alot of mold and what appeared to be a mouse dropping. Also, the packaging was dirty. Rather than throw it away she kept it for "later just in case" and swore me to never mention it to our mutual friend who supplied it. A very powerful teaching lesson for me. I do my best to make sure that never happens at my table.
This person also explained to me too that her reactions were different even with the same strain. For instance, she really enjoyed the flowers and preferred outdoor. She liked kief only of certain strains. Too much leaf gave her headaches. If she had been sleeping alot, cannabis clarified her thinking and gave her restful alertness. If she hadn't been sleeping, and or had been taking alot of opiates which was stimulating to her but left her in the half awake half asleep state, cannabis put her into a good restorative sleep. Also, supplementing with magnesium and calcium in a 2:1 ratio helped her with anxiety. She would always take her edibles in small doses waiting an hour in between. I use this idea and make small doses for people who aren't used to cannabis and tell them to do the same. Now since having access to high CBD I do it for myself too. One of the easy things to do is to make a big batch of simple syrup and infused edible oils as soon as my flowers are dry and cured where I think they are right. I have my honest friends help me decide. This is the only way I have found to have some confidence in consistency since it helps preserve the qualities.
So, if I am doing for someone else and it's possible, it helps to find out what they already like and use that if I can. Also, keep as much leaf out as possible. But #1 is to check for foulness. Now we have the broad mites I have a 200x endoscope/microscope that attaches to my phone. It's a good tool because people my age are having trouble seeing thru microscopes. We can look and expand the view and even make a copy. It is so devastating for people to see that their hoped for medicine has been infected. But showing is so much better than telling and emotions don't get wounded.
So much of this work has been done at the kitchen table up to now, and depended on the integrity of the hands that prepared it. As we move into automation and mass production we can only pray that food safety practices are required at all points of production.
So, yes it is all about recipes at this point in time, soon though scientific practices can be made available just as they are now to farmers of other crops. In this vein,I was blessed to get a MyDx which is definitely heading in the right direction. It's a little glitchy now but improving every day. At first I thought the company was just in it for quick bucks and thought I had bought a "pig in a poke" and chalked the loss up to the "Stop being a Sucker" column. Turns out they are working to keep their promises. They do know how to make it work.
Sorry to get so wordy here. I hope to help. Luckily, cannabis has no practical lethal dose, is naturally anti fungal, anti bacterial, anti fungal and within limits can heal itself. Even so, it can be so much better.
