Legend has it fennel bestowed immortality in the Greek island of Prometheus. If you needed a reason to learn to love its aniseed flavour, that’s a good one right there. Romans thought it helped with maintaining a healthy weight. Add another tick!
File this away for next Halloween, but fennel was hung over doorways and its seeds chocked into keyholes to keep away evil spirits and stop ghosts from entering. At the very least, if you’re not a fan of trick or treat festivities, hanging fennel sprigs over your front entrance might make you look eccentric enough to stop kids from knocking on your door.
When it comes to fennel as a food, it’s a great source of vitamin C, fibre, potassium and folate. For a fresh salad, finely slice a couple of washed and trimmed baby fennel bulbs and the same amount of firm green pears. Toss with lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil, scatter with a handful of crumbled toasted walnuts and parmesan. Add a few reserved fennel fronds to make it look swish: bellissimo!
The bulb, stalk, leaves and seeds are all edible but it’s the crushed seeds from the flowers that are used for creating fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) essential oil via steam distillation.
The key constituent of fennel essential oil is trans-anethole at 60 to 80%, which is a very high percentage of one constituent. Anetholes are ethers, which are aren’t found as commonly in essential oils as other constituents like alcohols, ketones and terpenes. Anethole is also found in anise, so this helps us understand why fennel has a similar licorice-like flavour. Ethers have a balancing effect on our feelings.
We tend to associate fennel with food, digestion and physical benefits. But aromatically, it can also be a positive influence when feeling a sense of lack or insecurity or holding onto old hurts. If we think of fennel in terms of helping us digest thoughts and feelings, it adds another dimension to its possibilities.
Fennel essential oil can be diluted with equal parts of carrier oil for applying topically and all-over massage. You can also apply it over chakras, especially the base, solar plexus, heart and crown chakras. It can be diffused and inhaled directly.
You’ll find fennel in Young Living Digest & Cleanse softgel capsules and a couple of drops or so can be added to food but please: only when the label on your essential oil indicates it’s safe to do so. Not all oils are created equal when it comes to genuine quality and purity and only the best can be considered for this purpose, like the ones supplied by Young Living. Discover why we love them so much in this short video.
As always, please follow the labels and the usual guidelines for safe use of authentic essential oils. Please note: fennel is not recommended if epileptic. If under the care of a health professional, seek their advice.
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