Tags
antioxidants, carotenoids, cataracts, dark green vegetables, food, goitrogen, healthy food, hypothyroidism, kale, lutein, thyroid, vitamin A, vitamin c, vitamin K, zeaxanthin
I’ve actually been meaning to write a little ranting, rather negative blurb about kale. Ironically the impetus for this blog has actually been another blog which talked about how to make a fantastic sounding vegetarian Thai curry containing kale; the pictures on the blog also swayed me.
http://brightyoungfood.com/2015/01/21/ultimate-thai-green-curry/
This recipe has thrown a different light on kale, forcing me to re-evaluate that maybe, just maybe, I was rather hasty a couple of weeks ago, in vowing that I wouldn’t try kale again.
Now, don’t get me wrong, kale has a great nutritional profile. For those of you who don’t know what it is, kale is a vegetable – a “dark, green leafy type”.
Now, I’m a huge believer in the mantra that variety is the spice of life. So in the spirit of this mantra, I decided to expand my repertoire of dark, green leafy vegetables and dared to reach out for a bag of curly kale the other week at the supermarket.
As I do with all new foods I buy, I adhere religiously to the cooking instructions on the packaging. Boil for 8 minutes it said – that’s exactly what I did. I cooked the kale in the most basic way – unadulterated – not even a pinch of salt was added to the water.
The two words that dominated my thoughts and subsequent verbalised opinions after two big good mouthfuls of kale were “yuk” and “disgusting”, as well as the phrase “I’m never going to have that again!”
I do like trying foods in their pure state so I have an idea of their natural flavour. I’m glad I didn’t take this a step further and try the kale in its glorious raw form, as I might have easily violated my taste buds. Admittedly, I did accompany the second mouthful of kale with some salmon, hoping to better its taste (or mask it) but really this didn’t help. This extra mouthful just strengthened my conviction of not allowing kale into my kitchen again. I convinced myself that I didn’t need kale in my life and that there were plenty of other dark green leafy vegetables to take its place.
Now, kale is fantastically rich in vitamins A, C and K, so similar to Brussel sprouts in being full of vitamins C and K. (In one of my blogs in December 2014 I talked about how great Brussel sprouts were and went into some detail about the wonders of vitamins C and K.) The difference with kale is that it also contains vitamin A, so I liked to refer to it as the vegetable full of vitamin “KAC”, seeing how to me it was such a foul-tasting vegetable.
Yes, it’s true that spinach, broccoli, romaine lettuce, Swiss chard, collard greens and mustard greens are alternatives to kale as dark, green leafy vegetables to provide vitamin “KAC”. All these dark, green leafy vegetables also contain lots of lutein and zeaxanthin.
You may well ask what the hell are those – lutein and zeaxanthin? Well, these are carotenoids. And again, you may ask what the hell are carotenoids? Well, carotenoids are amazingly powerful antioxidants and so can help in preventing conditions such as cancer and heart disease.
What’s so special about these antioxidants lutein and zeaxanthin is that they may help in reducing the risk of certain eye disease, such as cataracts and age-related macular degeneration (AMD). In fact, kale tops all the dark, green leafy vegetables in having the highest amount of these antioxidants. In the Western diet, many of us don’t get enough of lutein and zeaxanthin. So, it’s worth considering having some kale in your life.
It’s interesting that the nutritional profile of a food changes depending on how you eat it. So if you ate kale raw, you would be eating double the amount of lutein and zeaxanthin than if you cooked the kale. However, just allowing kale back into my life is a step in the right direction. Raw kale for me is just too hard core. I think I might just veer to having it as one of a number of cooked ingredients in a nice warm Thai curry in this cold month of January.
A fact to note is that the bitter taste of kale gets stronger the longer it is kept, so try and eat it within a couple of days of buying. This may well have been one of the reasons for it tasted particularly bitter to me as I had left my pack languishing at the bottom of the fridge for some days.
A small cautionary note for those with an underactive thyroid (aka hypothyroidism) is that dark, green leafy vegetables contain compounds called goitrogens. So what? Well, goitrogens tend to reduce how much iodine you absorb. So what? Well, iodine is a very important mineral that your thyroid gland needs.
What is the thyroid gland? The thyroid gland is a small organ found in your neck which makes thyroid hormones. These regulate your metabolic rate and are also involved in making sure that other parts of your body, like your heart, gut, brain and bone, are working correctly. Eating goitrogens reduces your body’s iodine levels…which then reduces the amount of thyroid hormones produced by your thyroid gland…and so your body literally slows down – your metabolic rate decreases and various parts of your body don’t function at the normal rate they should.
So for those people who already have an underactive thyroid they should not eat an excess of dark, green leafy vegetables, just a normal amount. They shouldn’t avoid them, as they’re are full of great nutrients. Also, by cooking these vegetables, most of the goitrogens are destroyed.
Bottom line – people with hypothyroidism should not eat excessive amounts of dark, green leafy vegetables and should try and have them cooked.
Now, enough biology, go and try some kale! Also, just to say that I’ll still refer to Kale as containing vitamin “KAC” but another fonder nickname I now have for it is Special K, seeing that it contains such huge amounts of the special antioxidants lutein and zeaxanthin, all the better to see you with!
Photo by Rogier Noort (A Kilo of Kale) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.