Recipe: Fresh Green Juice with Cannabis Fan Leaves

After a trim sesh, homegrowers are often left with a pile of fan leaves and nowhere to put them. Freshly trimmed fan leaves can be used to make an ultra-powerful green juice or smoothie (no need to decarb).

Cannabis is unique from other vegetables though because it also contains important compounds known as cannabinoids. Cannabinoids are the active compounds in cannabis. The most abundant of these compounds are THCA and CBDA, also know as acidic cannabinoids, which convert into THC and CBD once heated.

A growing body of research indicates there are enormous health benefits to consuming THCA and CBDA, which are only found in raw or unheated forms of cannabis.

Check out a quick and easy green cannabis juice recipe below. This recipe will, depending on how fresh your ingredients are, yield around 16oz of juice. A cold press juicer is recommended – see our notes below.

Fresh Cannabis Juice Recipe

• 4-5 cups of freshly trimmed cannabis fan leaves, tightly packed
• 1-2 inches ginger (depending on how spicy you like it!)
• 2 stalks of celery
• 1 cup baby spinach
• 2 apples
• 6 carrots
• 2 slices lemon

Feed the above ingredients into your juicer and enjoy immediately!

A note on juicing equipment: Cold press juicing is recommended when juicing fan leaves or other cannabis plant parts. This is an important distinction as the high speeds associated with centrifugal juicers causes heat, which can inadvertently convert your THCa into THC.

What’s the difference? Masticating juicers, or cold-pressed juicers, use a slower, crushing and squeezing action. Centrifugal juicers use sharp teeth and high speeds to spin pulp around in the chamber.

Notes:

If you’re not ready to juice yet, stick your cannabis fan leaves in a sealed tupperware container in your fridge, or in a cup of water on your kitchen counter, and they should keep for a couple extra days. Any longer than this and they will start to brown and degrade.

Keep in mind that enough heat and time will decarboxylate the CBDA and THCA in your leaves into THC and CBD, respectively. I’ve even accidentally activated THC in raw fan leaves with a high-speed blender, so – proceed at your own risk!

Want more on what to do with fan leaves? Check out: The Joys of Juicing with the Vermont Cannabis Nurses Association.

Here’s an interesting (and legit) study that delves into the effects of nutritional supplementation on the cannabinoid content of fan leaves.