Stop Trying to Kale Me

          Friends, yogis, enjoyers of healthful eating everywhere:  We have been sold a false bill of greens.  We’ve had the wool pulled over our eyes by Big Leafy.  Lucky for you, I am a Veggie Truther, and I refuse to be bullied into submission by current wellness trends.  So I’ve done the research, and I have great news for you:
            We don’t have to eat kale anymore!!
            A few years ago, a boutique gym I teach for was making preparations for an anniversary celebration of their opening, and I was helping reach out to local restaurants to inquire about food donations.  Over and over, I kept hearing the same response:  “Sure!  We can bring over a kale-and-quinoa salad!!” (Quinoa is yet another “superfood” verging dangerously on overexposure.)  We served no fewer than three variants of kale-and-quinoa salad at that event.  (Thank gawd for the local Italian restaurant for balancing the equation with their gluten-and-dairy donation, aka pizzas and pastas.)   Each kale-and-quinoa salad was drenched in an assaultive vinaigrette in an effort to fool eaters into thinking they were eating something other than kale-and-quinoa salad.  But I’m no fool.  Unless that crap is buried under molten cheese, there is no disguising the displeasure that awaits you at the bottom of a bowl of kale-and-quinoa salad. 
            Health bloggers, juice enthusiasts, and Instagram will try to convince you that kale is some sort of magic green—a miracle of modern farming.  But was anyone even eating kale five years ago?  Where did this stuff come from, and why is everyone trying to shove it down my throat?  Is it really better for us than every other single vegetable that ever existed, or does it just have a better publicist*?
            Let’s examine the evidence:

• Exhibit 1:  Did you know that raw kale has to be massaged before it can be consumed in salad form?  Let me repeat that for you.  You have to massage kale in order to make a kale salad.  Oh, I’m sorry, Kale, are the pressures of newfound fame too much for you?  Is it making you tense?  No.  You’re just naturally too tough to eat without it.  Ask yourself:  are you really willing to treat your greens to something you shell out your hard-earned money for at the spa, like, one time a year?  No.  No, you are not.  You are too busy and important for that.
• Exhibit 2:  Sure, kale is nutrient-dense.  You know what else is nutrient dense?  Literally every other leafy green vegetable.  Did you know that spinach, the humble multi-tasker who has graciously served you in everything from smoothies to pizza-toppings, ranks highest in potassium?  Or that arugula, spinach’s sassier cousin, tops the charts in calcium?  Arugula is, in fact, so bad-ass that in the UK, they call it “rocket.”  How cool is that?  Do you want to eat a rocket salad like a bad-ass, or a kale salad like a nerd? When was the last time either of these greens demanded a massage before becoming a salad?  In terms of highest overall vitamin count, there is a dark horse in the running:  Watercress.  When was the last time you ate watercress?  When is watercress gonna get it’s moment in the sun?  My dad used to put watercress on his sandwiches back in, like, the 80s.  Turns out Papa Finkel was ahead of his time.  I predict a watercress revolution cropping up any day now.
• Exhibit 3:  The best and most delicious way to eat kale is the in the form of kale chips, and that is also the most expensive way to eat kale.  It turns out you have to pay a premium for snack items that make you feel like you’re eating health food and junk food simultaneously.

                   To be clear:  Kale is a trend.  Food trends are just like fashion trends; the veggie equivalent of the peplum (gross).  They make you feel cool for a minute, but then you look back on yourself with the tiniest bit of shame and disgust.  Picture yourself 10 years from now, noshing on a watercress salad, saying, “OMG, remember when we used to have to massage our salads?  We were so silly then!  Lololololololol!!!”
            *Need further proof?  I thought I was kidding when I said kale just had a better publicist, but it turns out I wasn’t. 

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