Toss torn, local kale with your lettuce on the salad bar, add minced or shredded kale to your recipes for entrees, side dishes, and sauces, incorporate kale in soups, stews, and sauteed greens, add baby kale to sandwiches, toss minced kale in place of fresh spinach into pasta, or share kale as a taste test item.
Agriculture Facts:
- Kale actually becomes sweeter after the first frost of the season, and it can keep growing right through winter!
- There are over 50 varieties of kale!
- Lacinato Kale is known by many, many aliases including Cavolo nero (which means black cabbage in Italian), Tuscan Cabbage, Tuscan Kale, and dinosaur or dino kale.
- America plants more acres in Kale than Brussels Sprouts, and we produce 70 million pounds of sprouts each year!
Nutrition and Food Facts:
A single cup of raw kale (about 67 grams or 2.4 ounces) contains:
- Vitamin A: 206% of the DV (from beta-carotene)
- Vitamin K: 684% of the DV
- Vitamin C: 134% of the DV
- Vitamin B6: 9% of the DV
- Manganese: 26% of the DV
- Calcium: 9% of the DV
- Copper: 10% of the DV
- Potassium: 9% of the DV
- Magnesium: 6% of the DV
- It also contains 3% or more of the DV for vitamin B1 (thiamin), vitamin B2 (riboflavin), vitamin B3 (niacin), iron and phosphorus
Literature and Lore:
- Kale has been grown around the world for over 6,000 years.
- With every leaf of kale, your chew adds another stem to the tree of life: an ancient Turkish saying.
- Bon Appétit magazine named 2012 the year of kale, and on October 2, 2013, “National Kale Day” was launched in the U.S.
- Although kale has early roots in Greek and Roman culture, it remained a relatively minor commercial crop in the U.S. until recent years. This leafy green reached celebrity status around 2012, appearing on menus of Michelin star restaurants and becoming the choice ingredient of millennial food bloggers.
Nutrition and Food Facts:
- A one-cup serving of kale may only have 33 calories, but it also contains a whopping 206 percent of your daily recommendation of vitamin A, a 134 percent of your daily recommendation of vitamin C, and 684 percent of your daily vitamin K.
- A cup of milk contains approximately 96 milligrams of absorbable calcium, whereas one cup of raw kale contains 83 milligrams of absorbable calcium.
- Kale is a superfood! It contains a powerful punch of phytonutrients that can help reverse inflammation and boost the detoxification abilities of the liver.
- Per calorie, kale has more iron than beef.
Spread the word and build partnerships
Don’t be a solo act. Invite your community to the table!
Promote in-house:
- Announcements
- Newsletters
- Website
- Social media
- Events (health fairs, open houses, garden working events, back to school, holiday activities, parents night, sporting events)
- Meetings (PTO, wellness committee, board of directors, staff professional learning days)
- Food tastings during events
Promote in your community:
- Report on activities and share pictures with news sources
- Share with community partners for their websites, social media and newsletters
- Post fliers at public places (libraries, health centers, non-profit hospitals, garden groups, local farm hubs, farmers markets, health agencies)
- Ask students to create and publicize local food stories – include photos or create videos
Invite others onsite to get involved:
- Build impact by engaging culinary arts, Future Farmers of America, botany, ecocentric and garden programs
- Create relationships and engage non-profit hospitals, garden groups, local farm hubs, farmers markets, health agencies and advocates
- Find support in local culinary leaders and businesses
Curricular Connections and Activities
K-12: There is a national day celebrating kale. Be a Kale Hero is a day of kale celebration on October 1st.
Check out the Georgia Organics Lessons for Kale for grades pre-k to 12 and Community Farmers Market Activity Sheets here.
Menu Logos – right click to save these images
Recipes
We have many recipes for you to look through in our Recipe Index! Here you can see take-home recipes for use in the community as well as more choices for your cafeteria. You will find hot and cold recipes for most foods. Be sure to use the provided icons on your menu!
Featured Food Service Recipe: Equinox Lasagna
Featured CACFP Recipe: Simmered Greens
Featured Home Recipe 1#: Kale Chips
Featured Home Recipe #2: Kale Pesto