Potassium Powerhouse

Who knew? One morning while having a conversation about juicing, variety and nutrients, there was a "what if" moment — what if we juiced a fennel bulb (also known as anise)? Would it be disgusting? The very subtle anise/licorice flavor of fresh fennel is almost as polarizing as that of cilantro: people either love it or hate it. Taste not being the only factor for juicing something, I decided to look up the nutrition data for raw fennel.

What I found was astounding. One 234g fennel bulb contains 969mg of potassium, according to the USDA nutrition database. For someone like me who is combating high blood pressure with nutrition, this was a glorious discovery. Now, a fennel bulb of that size also contains 122mg of sodium, but that's not bad as long as I'm keeping a close eye on the total sodium in my diet. Fennel is also a fantastic source of vitamin C, and a decent source of folate, calcium and iron.

So how did it taste when combined with other ingredients in a juice? Almost imperceptible. We really had to "look for it" in the finished juice. Lemon and ginger easily masked any flavor the fennel might have added.

Here's a green juice recipe (this has become my go-to "Everyday Green" juice):
1 fennel bulb, stalks trimmed off
1 seedless cucumber
4 leaves of lacinato ("dinosaur") kale
1 yellow bell pepper
1 lemon, rind removed
1 chunk of peeled ginger root

You'll be hard-pressed to taste the fennel. If you do and that's not to your liking, simply add another lemon.

Fennel is my new "secret ingredient" packing a potassium punch, that I now add to almost every juice I make.