So you know how everyone talks about eating kale, the all-powerful super food?

According to Michael Murray in The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods, “Kale and collards are essentially the same vegetable, only kale has leaves with curly edges and is less tolerant to heat.” (p.209)

Hipsters, soul-food enthusiasts… unite.

I just cooked with collards for the first time. And they tasted alright. But…

I LOVED PREPARING THEM.

Is that weird, to have fun cutting up a vegetable?

I usually just chop,chop,chop. But collards, you were just super satisfying to work with. So glad I got to know you.

First off, the collards I bought were these HUGE fucking leaves. Monster. And rigid–almost tough. Maybe I bought wrong?

After cutting out the super huge, tough stems, I cut the leaves into strips. I had this beautiful pile of veggie ribbons on my plate.

I guess I just always feel cutting veggies is ugly. I’m not a good dicer; things turn out all different sizes. But these kept their shape and were so green and healthy looking.

I just loved it.

And… they ARE healthy.

Murray states that “one cup of kale supplies more than 70 percent of the RDI of vitamin C…It is also a very good source of dietary fiber, as well as many minerals, including copper, iron, and calcium.”

And there’s the magic word. Calcium. I’m still trying to show my milk-crazy mother that I can get calcium from vegetables.

According to my nutrition book, ½ cup of cooked collards has

• 25 calories
• 3g fiber
• 2g protein
• 133 mg calcium

And at first, that calcium number is just kinda there. But then compare it to:

Broccolli- 31 mg per ½ cup, boiled

Kale- 90 mg per ½ cup, boiled

I always thought broccoli was the super calcium veggie.

This website also gives nutritional data

It shows that from 1 cup of collards, you get 27% of your calcium. That’s pretty cool, if you ask me.

See, mom? Eat some collards.

What Say You, Dear Readers?

Any good ways you’ve cooked collards, or other greens?