Convince Your Family to Eat Kale

Known as a "nutrition powerhouse", kale contains a high concentration of vitamins A, C and K, folate and potassium, as well as phytonutrients (nutrients that sustain human life in an optimal way such as preventing disease).[1] According to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, eating a diet high in vitamin K can lower your cancer risk. Moreover, adding more green leaves to your diet is the absolute best nutritional means by which you can protect yourself from heart disease, diabetes and some cancers.[1]

In addition to these various documented health benefits, eating kale can be a tantalizing and delicious experience. But perhaps you're not convinced and you're even less convinced that your family will think so... Indeed, while this information is valuable and suggests that eating kale should be a “no brainer,” many families turn their noses up at the green, leafy vegetable.

Yet it is possible to turn moaning about kale into at least positive acceptance and maybe even sought after enjoyment. To get to this point, instead of slapping some steamed kale on your family’s plate tonight and telling them they must eat it, use a little psychology, reasoning and mouthwatering ingredients to get them begging for more.

Steps

  1. Talk up the health benefits of kale to family members who will listen. For younger kids, simply let them know it'll help them grow strong and stay healthy. For everyone able to understand the benefits of good health, make this anti-cancer, vitamin rich super-food more relevant by talking about why you want to stay healthy and how easily good nutrition can assure this. Some reasons to help you convince your family of why it's important to stay healthy through good nutrition include:
    • To avoid being sidelined from their social life. Even toddlers don't want to miss a play date, so telling your children and teens that eating healthy will ensure that they don't miss their “appointments” may help them to appreciate why you are putting it on their plate.
    • Keeping their brain healthy. While there is no cure for diseases like Alzheimer’s, many physicians and researchers believe that a preventative diet that includes foods like kale can reduce the risk of contracting the disease (along with daily exercise). Kale's vitamins A, E, K and C (also found in all darkly colored fruits and vegetables) have been known to prevent damage caused by free radicals.
    • May help improve eyesight. Not interested in getting glasses? Eat your kale and let the dietary carotenoid Zeaxanthin go to work, keeping your eyes bright. Carotenoids protect the eyes through mopping up free radicals that could otherwise harm the macular region of the eye.
    • Any vegetarians or vegans in the family? Research has shown that the calcium in kale is particularly well absorbed.[2]
    • It tastes good. Okay, you're getting to this part. They need to trust you on this...
  2. Consider not reasoning with the family over eating their kale. Simply exercise the cook's prerogative and serve it up anyway. You can bring the health benefits up after they've enjoyed the ways in which you've made it! (See below for enjoyable ways to serve kale.)
  3. Purchase only fresh, young kale. The fresher any vegetable, the better it is going to taste to the diner. In the case of a vegetable that causes some people to turn up their nose, this factor is even more important!
    • Buy or harvest young kale; mature leaves are very bitter (unless you like that).
    • You might like to buy organic kale if you believe that organic produce has higher levels of nutrients than conventional produce.
    • Store kale in a cool spot in the refrigerator.
    • Cook the kale within a few days of buying it so it doesn’t wilt or go bad. Also, cook kale quickly, both to maintain its nutrients and its flavor. See How to prepare kale for more details.
    • As with any vegetable, don’t serve it if has become mushy or has a sour smell.
  4. Plant a garden that includes kale. One of the best ways to encourage your family to eat the vegetable is to get them actively involved in cultivating it. Kale is remarkably easy to grow and tends to be forgiving of a range or soils and temperatures. Moreover, it tends to be prolific! Create a vegetable garden and make sure that kale is one of your new crops.
    • See How to grow kale for details.
    • Be aware that kale takes up a lot of space in the garden and is a slow grower. However, it's great when there is nothing much else fresh available in the garden.
    • Getting the kids involved will give them a sense of pride, accomplishment and interest in eating their crops. Your child will proudly point to the homegrown bushel of kale and tell people that he or she grew it. When it comes time to harvest the crop, your gardener child be more inclined to try it since the kale was his or her “baby.”
  5. Integrate kale slowly as well as talking about why it is healthy. Understanding how kale grows and being familiar with what it looks like can provide familiarity. One problem families often run into is trying to eat foods they don't see on a regular basis or have never had any connection with. Unfortunately, if processed foods are more often on the table than fresh, your family may shriek in horror if you suddenly begin to serve garden fresh food. A gradual introduction of kale into the diet can help ease the initial dislike of it.
  6. Investigate how to combine kale with the types of ingredients your family responds to most. At all costs, avoid steamed or boiled kale on its own when first introducing it into your family's diet. Kale can be voluminous, its new texture can seem chewy or stringy to a newcomer and these issues may be exacerbated by serving it up as a vegetable in its own right. Instead, begin by cooking it with familiar ingredients. Fortunately, hearty kale can be combined with a variety of ingredients, meaning that it can accommodate numerous flavors and textures and be "hidden" away at first.
    • How do you prepare and serve other vegetables? Consider how your family eats other vegetables. Do they like them with a little cheese or does the family typically respond well to garlic and olive oil? Any types of spices and seasonings hit the spot such as oregano or basil?
    • Consider mixing kale with other dishes like lasagna or even hiding it in spaghetti sauce. Be a sneaky chef and puree it into sauce or layer it into a vegetable lasagna. In many cases, the other ingredients may mask kale’s flavor and your family may not even know kale is in the dish.
    • Don't cook it. Instead mix it into a salad with other leafy greens such as lettuce, Swiss chard, baby spinach leaves, endive, arugula (rocket), dandelion greens, etc. Mix and match greens is a very creative way to serve up greens.
  7. Vary the kale presentation. You don’t have to eat kale the same old way every time; in fact, you can experiment with kale to create healthy snacks such as kale chips. Here are some more kale dish suggestions:
    • To make kale chips, lay freshly washed leaves on a cookie sheet and drizzle olive oil over each leaf. Bake at 400ºF/200ºC on a middle rack for 12 minutes (turn chips halfway through cooking)––you’ll have a fabulous substitute to potato chips.
    • Make Sesame Kale
    • Make Braised Kale With Bacon and Onions
    • Make Kale and Chickpea Soup and Make Chorizo, Potato and Kale Soup
    • Make a Warm Potato, Carrot and Kale Salad
    • Alleviate IBS and Constipation With Green Smoothies.
    • Kale is also excellent chopped and used in the same way you would use spinach or cabbage such as in soups (a kale known as Cavolo nero is a key ingredient in minestrone), cooked in quiches, in a host of stirfries, in curry and Indian side dishes such as Aloo palak, kale and cheese pastries like spanakopita, in mashed potato including Make Colcannon or bubble and squeaks.
  8. Integrate kale into at least one meal a week. The more your family sees kale on the table, the more they will become comfortable with it. You don’t have to serve it every day to glean the health benefits––try offering it at least once a week as either a side dish or integrated into the main course. On other days, give your family a variety of leafy green vegetables so that "nature's best protection" becomes the norm for eating in your house.
    • Let each family make a dish featuring kale. Let your spouse and kids take a swing at making a delicious kale dish. Each week let one member of the family make a kale dish, which may give them a greater appreciation for the leafy green. For small children, act as an assistant (cutting and cooking) but let them call the shots. If you get everyone on board with your kale initiative it may catch on.

Tips

  • Blanching and microwaving of greens that you're cooking are the best methods for retaining the most nutrients. Try to include raw kale in the diet occasionally too.
  • The darker the green leafy vegetable, the better for you. This is why kale (along with spinach and beet greens) is so good for you; unlike spinach and beet greens though, it doesn't have high amounts of oxalates, which can can lead to the formation of kidney stones in susceptible people. Hence, kale trumps where you need to watch the oxalate intake.
  • Cook kale with familiar ingredients at first--even better, a little olive oil, sea salt and garlic may be one of the best ways to enjoy fresh, quality kale.
  • If your family rejects your repeated requests to eat kale, go back to reviewing the health benefits and ask for suggestions. Perhaps there is a way they would eat it––they just haven’t told you yet.
  • If growing kale, it tastes best if harvested after the first frosts.

Warnings

  • Always wash kale carefully––even if you purchase it pre-washed.

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 http://www.webmd.com/diet/healthy-kitchen-11/leafy-greens-rated
  2. ↑ Selene Yeager and the Editors of Prevention, The Doctors Book of Food Remedies, p. 311, (2007), ISBN 1-59486-753-4

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