The Best Kales
Plant this cold-hardy, super-nutritious crop in the fall for sweet soups and salads in the winter, with a recipe for black kale salad.
Start this cold-hardy crop now for sweet soups and
salads this winter.
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by John Navazio
Count kale as one of the true treasures of the fall garden,
with its sweetness revealed only after old Jack Frost has
kissed its leaves a time or two. This ultra-cold-hardy,
leafy green vegetable is a reliable deeply satisfying
addition to any cool-weather garden. Some types have tender
leaves perfect for salads. Some are great steamed or in
stews, and some are so hardy you can harvest them even in
the dead of winter almost everywhere. And, they're
beautiful, too.
Many of the folks who buy their produce in season from
local farmers have learned to love this unusual,
old-fashioned fall and winter vegetable — even though
they may not have grown up eating it. Kale is a
little-known relative of broccoli and cabbage, with a taste
that appeals to both adults and children. During my years
as a kale lover, I've run into a number of kale-eating
families with young children who relish the vegetable
steamed and served simply with butter or perhaps vinegar,
with salt and pepper to taste. Deb Kaldahl of the Abundant
Life Seed Foundation in Pots Townsend, Washington, says
steamed kale is one of the few cooked vegetables her
children will eat.
An elite member of a highly nutritious family of foods
called the "dark-green leafy vegetables," kale is kin to
broccoli and collards, which are its closest relatives;
spinach: Swiss chard; and beet, mustard and turnip greens.
All are good sources of vitamin K, the B-vitamin folic
acid, and betas carotene, which is converted to vitamin A
in the liver. Darkgreen leafy vegetables also are
exceptionally. high in other carotenoids, including
zeaxanthin and lutein, which are powerful antioxidants that
protect us from degenerative illnesses like cancer,
cardio-vascular disease and age-related macular
degeneration (the leading cause of blindness among the
elderly).
For years, kale also has been touted as one of the best
vegetable sources of calcium — which is especially
important for vegans and others who don't consume dairy
products. The newest research on calcium's role in human
nutrition sheds even snore light of how important kale,
collards and broccoli can he: It shows that, in order for
the body to assimilate dietary calcium, magnesium also must
be present in a meal. Dairy products are rich in calcium
but have relatively little magnesium kale and its relatives
have substantial amounts of both nutrients.
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