When Life Gives You Toxic Kale: Be Warned! [Plus Recipes for Deliciously Moreish Kale Salts]

Despite kale having all the wonderful stuff brassicas have in pretty high abundance - it can be bad for you. Not because it's poisonous in itself, but because of the pesticides sprayed upon it. Green is not always good for you at all.

This is a warning about kale for US readers - it's one of the Dirty Dozen, which are the food most sprayed with pesticides, according to the Environmental Working Group It's different here in Australia - our worse culprits are mushrooms, oranges, lettuces and apples! Even this can't be assumed - we simply do not have the wealth of data that the FDA has in the states. You just cannot be certain, unless you are buying organic. Washing them in vinegar can help, but growing your own is better - I know that my apples and kale have never been sprayed with anything, so for me, it's garden to plate (via the dehydrator, for the recipe that follows!).

BUT, despite what some headlines would have you believe, it is not bad for you, as viral media would have us think. Including this one. Be wary of sensationalism - how wonderful it would have been to write headlines like: 'Your Hipster Diet May be Killing You' and 'Welcome to the Kalepocalpyse' at the merest sniff that kale might not be the nutrient dense food it is. Imagine all the bundles of kale vegetarians and hipsters and whatever other label you want to attach to kale-munchers discarded as they search for the new clean superfood. But, as this fabulous article points out, the idea is totally flawed. I was glad to have my suspicions validated - not only is the toxic 'thallium' - something that brassicas are really good at getting out of the soil - unlikely to be sucked up into the leaves unless your soil is full of thallium, in which case, get your soil tested - but you'd need to eat truckloads of it. And whilst I have an abundance of it in my garden, it's very unlikely that I have anywhere near a ton, however much I exaggerate.

Furthermore, it's a case of 'science' affirming what it wants to affirm, according to the guy who wants his ideas confirmed. Dubious lab testing and lack of peer reviewed articles would be a warning sign to investigate further before composting your kale. Hubbard, the guy who brought the toxic kale virus to the world, believed that kale was full of thallium, which was causing an array of health problems from brain fog to chronic fatigue. Yet, as the Vox article argues, there's no published research that suggests this, and until this is done, I'm continuing to munch on my kale, thanks very much. And again, as the article concludes, 'the problem is less with kale, and more with growing food in contaminated areas'.

Phew.

^{Kale in any processed form is a delightful green, don't you think?}

So now onto my kale processing line, bringing in armloads of russian and tuscan kale from the garden. Kale dehydrated ready for the man's camping trip dinners. Kale in tomato pasta sauce. Kale chips with smoked paprika and black seeds. Fresh kale in smoothies. Kale in spring soups. And this week's peaceful resistance to the kale is bad myth pièce de résistance? Kale smoothie powder, and two types of kale salt, perfect for sprinkling on avocado toast, in season just in time.

Kale & Thyme Salt	Chocolate, Cacao and Chia Smoothie Powder	Lemony Kale Salt Rocks on Avo Toast

Kale Smoothie Powder

Inspired by the unstoppable amazingingly wonderful @birdsinparadise, this smoothie powder is amazing with bananas and berries. I never add sugar to my smoothies or any kind of sweetener - the cinnamon in this does the trick.

2 cups of dried kale
5 tablespoons chia
1 tbsp cinnamon
1/2 cup almonds or other nuts
5 - 10 caps of probiotic powder (optional)
1/4 cup of cacao or caco nibs

Blend until smooth and store in fridge (especially if it has the probiotics) ready to drop tablespoons in your summer smoothie!

Kale Salts

Whilst I was absolutley horrifed that my husband sprinkled kale salt on his VEGEMITE and avocado toast, I was happy that he loved it, and is now sprinkling it on all kinds of things. He loves anything salty, but what he doesn't realise (yet) as these salts don't contain much salt proportionately.

Kale & Thyme Salt	Lemony Kale Salt
1 cup of dried kale, two tsps of dried thyme, a sprinkle of dried garlic or spring onion, and salt to taste. Extraorindary on fried tomatoes or brushetta!	Blend equiv. 1/2 lemon of dried lemon peel, two cup of kale, 3 tbsps of toasted nuts or seeds (I used pepitas, dry fried in a pan) and a sprinkle of dehydrated spring onion. Made our avocado toast an utter delight! I think kids would love it too - just call it snot salt or dehydrated blended frog and you have a culinary winner for both little ones and young at heart.

In both recipes, I used spring onions and garlic leaves as that is what I had to hand, straight from the garden. The lemon peels were from our lemon tree. I ran the dehydrator all weekend, and am pleased to say it didn't cost me anything - we now have solar panels! They were finally connected to the grid last week, so whatever we don't use, we get paid for. We set everything on timers to run during the day whilst we are at work.

So, is green always good for you? In this instance, yes. Yes it is.

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