An Ode to Kale

(If you want to see my altered Walt Whitman ode first, it’s at the end.)

Let me tell you something easy to do, and then something hard to do.  It’s easy to go a whole week without buying or cooking a bundle of kale, collard, greens or spinach.  The difficult thing to do is getting motivated to get a cutting board out to prepare leafy greens to eat.  So why should we bother?  You might be thinking “They’re good for us”,  “They have fiber”, or “They have lots of vitamins”. These answers are a good start, but I firmly believe that better understanding creates better motivation,  so let’s talk greens.

Dark green leafy vegetables (DGLV) are dark green like the color green on a dollar bill.  Though similar, no two have the exact same nutritional resume, so let me just tell you about the kale served up in this week’s Beef, Bean and Kale Sauce over Quinoa. 

One cup of kale provides 1327% of your recommended daily allowance for vitamin K, 192% for vitamin A, and 88.8% for vitamin C.  Following these amazing numbers are smaller but significant amounts of 17 other vitamins and minerals.  (1)

Vitamin K is a commanding and absolutely essential player on the “building strong bones team” in your body. That makes 1,327% in one cup good news for babies,  growing children, menopausal adults and the elderly. 

Let’s move on to it’s role as a free radical fighter. “Forty five different antioxidant flavonoids are provided in measurable amounts by kale. This broad spectrum of flavonoid antioxidants is likely to be a key to kale’s cancer-preventive benefits and benefits that we expect to be documented for other health problems stemming from oxidative stress.”  (2)

You will be 45, I am 45, and one day we will all hopefully be older than 45, so let that number come to your mind the next time you try to whiz by the DGLF section of the produce department. One simple serving of kale covers a sweeping spectrum of vitamins and minerals (20) as well as an astounding array of antioxidants (45).  Maybe we should change the memory number to 65, and that is what you would call a nutrient dense food worth getting up off the couch for!

This week you will find kale in the meat sauce over quinoa, with another DGLF spinach in the Feta Chicken Pasta. .  For even more ideas enter “kale” in the search box on the recipe archive page and you will find more Orange Tree Lane recipes which use this delicious and nutritious powerhouse.

There now, did I move you any closer to your cutting board?

Molly

PS- (Those beautiful DGLFs in the picture are presently growing in my friend’s garden and what inspired this ode to DGLFs and kale in particular.)

1)  & (2)  http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=38

Another extremely thorough tribute to kale’s health benefits:

http://www.healthambition.com/benefits-kale-recipes/

Ok you wanted a real ode. Here you go…

ODE TO KALE

I celebrate dark green, leafy vegetables, and sing kale,
And what I know you now know,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

My taste buds, every atom of my blood, formed from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,
I,now forty five years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not my health till death.

(Adapted very closely from Walt Whitman in “Song of Myself” http://library.thinkquest.org/3721/poems/forms/ode.html )

This information is solely for informational purposes. IT IS NOT INTENDED TO PROVIDE MEDICAL ADVICE. Neither Orange Tree Lane or any of its affiliates take responsibility for any possible consequences from any treatment, procedure, exercise, dietary modification, action or application of medication which results from reading or following the information contained in this information. The publication of this information does not constitute the practice of medicine, and this information does not replace the advice of your physician or other health care provider. Before undertaking any course of treatment, the reader must seek the advice of their physician or other health care provider.