Do you know who is the largest consumer of kale is in this country?? Pizza Hut. Seriously. Now don’t start thinking Pizza Hut has become a place to go for healthy eating. They use if for decorating their salad bar….

Kale, one of the oldest cultivated vegetables, it has been a favorite since ancient Rome and ranks vastly superior to most vegetables. The United States has yet to embrace the potential of kale.

Kale has the highest protein content of all cultivated vegetables and is rich in vitamins A and C.

Kale can provide you with some special cholesterol-lowering benefits if you will cook it by steaming. The fiber-related components in kale do a better job of binding together with bile acids in your digestive tract when they’ve been steamed. When this binding process takes place, it’s easier for bile acids to be excreted, and the result is a lowering of your cholesterol levels. Raw kale still has cholesterol-lowering ability–just not as much.

Kale’s risk-lowering benefits for cancer have recently been extended to at least five different types of cancer. These types include cancer of the bladder, breast, colon, ovary, and prostate. Isothiocyanates (ITCs) made from glucosinolates in kale play a primary role in achieving these risk-lowering benefits.

Kale is now recognized as providing comprehensive support for the body’s detoxification system. New research has shown that the ITCs made from kale’s glucosinolates can help regulate detox at a genetic level.

Researchers can now identify over 45 different flavonoids in kale. With kaempferol and quercetin heading the list, kale’s flavonoids combine both antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits in way that gives kale a leading dietary role with respect to avoidance of chronic inflammation and oxidative stress.

While kale chips are healthy, they are just as addictive as regular chips! Be prepared. Seriously. They really, really are good!

This is how we do them. We actually used 2 bunches with three different seasonings. One was a curry style flavor using Penzey’s Tandoori seasoning, one was the nutritional yeast (who can’t use more B vitamins?!) and the third was a southwest flavor using chili powder, cumin and cayenne.

Kale Chips

1 large bunch kale

1 tbsp olive oil

1/4 c nutritional yeast or seasoning of your choice

sea salt

Preheat oven to 250 degrees.

Line your baking sheets with parchment paper.

Grab your kale. We used the flat variety Lacinato on this day.

Tear or cut it into about 2″ square pieces, not too small or it’s a pain, later on.

Wash and spin in a salad spinner. We then let ours sit out on a flour sack towel to continue to air dry.

In a large salad bowl, drizzle the kale with your olive oil until the pieces are evenly coated. Place kale, in a single layer, on your baking sheets and sprinkle with nutritional yeast and lightly dust with sea salt.

As for the salt, a little goes a long way. Because you are dehydrating the kale your salt sprinkling  can easily become overwhelming. Same with the cayenne!

It’s best if you put similar sized pieces on each cookie sheet. The smaller ones will be done quicker than the larger ones.

Place in oven and bake 25-30 minutes or until crispy. Be careful, it can burn quickly if you don’t keep an eye on it in the last minutes.

Remove when crisped.

I can’t decide which one I like best, I just keep munching, munching, munching…

Enjoy!