Elise McDonough, editor of Bong Appetite: Mastering the Art of Cooking with Weed and The Official High Times Cannabis Cookbook, breaks this down a bit further. “THC works into receptors throughout your body,” McDonough says. But the effect of the munchies is caused specifically by THC on receptors in your brain’s olfactory bulb, which is part of how you smell and taste and sense food, according to McDonough and a 2014 study published in Nature Neuroscience Journal . So, when THC binds to receptors there, it makes food smell better and taste more delicious, which is part of the munchies phenomena, McDonough says. Basically, it works within your brain to make your body feel hungry even when it’s not.