A Few More Thoughts On Kale

Dear Readers,

I recently received an e-mail from someone that had stumbled on my blog as the result of a search on the nutritional benefits of Kale. She found my article posted here titled “Kindly Kale.” (You can use the search function on this page to find it yourself, if you haven’t read it all ready.)

I wrote the article for the local paper – so I stuck just with the basic facts. But for everyone else who wants to follow my fringe and broken thinking around, here are some more thoughts.

Kale, is apparently low in a group of food chemicals know as amines. I say this, because I am fairly intolerant of amines, and I can eat lots of kale. A substance such as corn chips is fairly high in amines – and just a few will make me ill a very short time.

Do some research on amines on the internet and you will find that an inability to utilize them – because of a lack of an enzyme can cause all kinds of problems from migraines, high blood pressure, cancer, anxiety disorders, mental illness – and in children it can cause learning disabilities and mental retardation.

Another thing I ran into while researching amines was that they can be implicated in certain birth defects including and related to cleft pallet and spina bifida. It seems they can interfere with the differentiation along the central cleft in the developing fetus. It is theorized that depending on when and how often and how concentrated the pool of amines the fetus is exposed to is, has a relationship to how these deformities are expressed in the child’s development. Of course this is all theory.

However, it seems to me that all of this is just one more reason to eat kale . . . If you need some tips on growing your own - I refur you back to the article . . .

Coming up in next week newspaper I have an article on Giant Red Japanese Mustard. In that article I mention some greens that are high in amines. You will have to wait and read the paper – or wait till I post it here to get that scoop. (Impatient are you? Well you can always do your own search.)

Later Gator!

Harvest