http://www.care2.com/greenliving/far...ble-kale.html#

I'm not so sure about the "... any other fruit or vegetable"

Oh, and it contains no gluten


http://oracvalues.com

Could be per ounce. I haven't read the article yet.

TY

This fall we planted several varieties of kale, to see which ones we liked and which ones did well. We have been eating a LOT of kale! If you are trying to get a lot of kale down (and some of the varieties do have a strong flavor) then steaming it or sauteeing in olive oil work well, because they reduce the volume of the kale to where one forkful has four or five leaves, whereas in a salad, one forkful may have only one or two, plus it's harder to eat.

However we eat it, though, I agree that the day after I seem to feel sharper, clearer, more energetic, and don't crave the junk food as much as usual. A friend of mine did the raw food diet for a year, and she claimed she felt mentally clearer than she had in years. She couldn't stay with it, though, it's a hard one to follow.

Like most greens, kale can be grown in a container on a patio if you are short on space. Our favorite kale is dino kale, also called Toscana/Toscano Kale.

TY lurking.

We eat alot of fresh greens. Spinach if a family fave. I hadn't tried kale.

How does it compare? Do you think it could be substitued or added to spinich in dishes like spinach echiladas? Or try mixing with other greens until the strong flavor has been gotten used to..by the kids? They do eat veggies...even brussel spouts.

From wiki:

Kale is considered to be a highly nutritious vegetable with powerful antioxidant properties and is anti-inflammatory.[1]
Kale is very high in beta carotene, vitamin K, vitamin C, lutein, zeaxanthin, and reasonably rich in calcium. Because of its high vitamin K content, patients taking anti-coagulants such as warfarin are encouraged to avoid this food since it increases the vitamin K concentration in the blood, which is what the drugs are often attempting to lower. This effectively raises the effective dose of the drug.
Kale, as with Broccoli and other brassicas, contains sulforaphane, a chemical believed to have potent anti-cancer properties, particularly when chopped or minced
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kale

I am embarrassed...especially since nutritian is part of what I do for a living. Can I blame living in the south where collard and turnip greens are plentiful?

I'm intrigued now. I have made chips from sweet potatoes, turnips and other root veggies.

I found some interesting recipes.
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Baked-K...ps/Detail.aspx

Baked Kale Chips
INGREDIENTS

• 1 bunch kale
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon seasoned salt

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line a non insulated cookie sheet with parchment paper.
2. With a knife or kitchen shears carefully remove the leaves from the thick stems and tear into bite size pieces. Wash and thoroughly dry kale with a salad spinner. Drizzle kale with olive oil and sprinkle with seasoning salt.
3. Bake until the edges brown but are not burnt, 10 to 15 minutes.

Ugh, I just typed in a huge reply and lost it, hit the wrong button!

Here goes again, but a condensed version.

Two more greens to consider are arugula, which I have read contains a chemical toxic to cancer cells, and beet greens. These go well on sandwiches and the arugula in particular adds a nice zest to salads and chopped fine, can be added to cooked beans, like lentils. Not saying our kids will eat all of this, but we do.

We experimented with the garden this year and grew about five different kinds of kale, two of chard, arugula, beets, and collards (as well as the usual onions and garlic). The greens are great, but I do find they are tough, and thick, so they are best mixed into a salad, chopped pretty fine. We also sautee and steam them, with olive oil and sea salt, and the flavor is hard to beat.

We also bought one of those hand-held choppers, about twenty bucks, and you can chop greens, carrots, beets, cucumbers, etc. into tiny course chunks and it makes eating raw veggies and salad much easier. I would love to chop up a huge salad we could eat on for a few days, but it dries out, even in tupperware, so I usually just make it when needed. It takes a fair bit of physical work, though, using that chopper, but much safer than trying to chop those slippery veggies with a knife!

We have found many ways of using these greens, and they essentially can be used anywhere you would use lettuce, as long as you don' t mind the texture and different flavor. You get used to it, though, and you will LOVE how you feel. The arugula is actually a very delicate leaf, so its texture is like that of lettuce. Arugula in early season is delicious and you can eat a whole salad made just from that one green, but now, as the season is ending and the plants are going to seed, boy is it hot! A few leaves on a sandwich are plenty!

We got our seeds this year from organic and heirloom seed companies, and the did quite well. The Russian kale, a beautiful plant with purplish lacy leaves, is quite small and not a huge producer, FYI. But it looks great in the garden!

Another gardening tip shared with me this year, and what a difference it has made, it to use a fish-emulsion fertilizer (we buy ours in a ready-made concentrate from a natural garden store). It is a blend of fish emulsion, kelp, probably some manure, and it stinks but our kale leaves are bigger than my face, and that's just the leaf part, not including the stem! All of the plants have thrived, the collards look like something out of a nuclear test facility, they are even bigger!

Sorry to rant on, I love gardening and this year has been a great one. I think it is wonderful more people are interested in growing and eating from their own yards, it's hard to be more healthy than that. You can grow a pretty good set of greens from a big container, so even if you don't have a big yard, or any yard, you can still grow some of your own greens.

We like to steam it long enough, 5 minutes or so, until the leaves turn bright green and put a splash of soy or tamari on it. It's yummy. I've read that chewing it thoroughly is important to get the most out of it. Drink your food I guess