Nutrition
The mighty health benefits of adding kale to your diet and skin-care routine
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Nutrition
The mighty health benefits of adding kale to your diet and skin-care routine
Raw or cooked, this showy ruffled green delivers great taste and a host of key nutrients. Try it for yourself: Our kale chips are seriously addictive.
Considered a nonheading cabbage because the central leaves don't form a ball, hearty kale grows in warm and cool climates, with some varieties even growing in frosty conditions. Common varieties include Tuscan (an Italian heirloom variety also called lacinato and dinosaur) and purple-veined Red Russian—both of which, like all types, are delicious enough to eat raw.
THE BENEFITS
1. Kale contains chlorophyll, the green pigment in plants, which has detoxifying properties.
2. The plant's vitamin K content, essential for blood clotting, surpasses that of broccoli, spinach and Swiss chard. This vitamin also helps support bone health (along with calcium, which is acquired through kale, too), helping prevent fractures and menopausal bone-density loss.
3. Like many cruciferous vegetables, kale delivers a good dose of glucosinolates and sulforaphanes. These anticancer antimicrobial compounds may promote the body's release of cancer-fighting enzymes.
4. Kale provides an excellent source of vitamin C, which helps maintain a healthy immune system, as well as vitamins A (as beta-carotene) and B6.
ADD IT TO YOUR BEAUTY ROUTINE
Behold the detoxifying effects of chlorophyll for your skin.
Verdura Naturalternatives Sprout Facial Mask, $36, verduranaturalternatives.com. Perricone MD Chlorophyll Detox Mask, $82, sephora.ca. Graydon The Green Cream, $38, graydonskincare.ca. Odacité Green Ceremony Cleanser, $67, thedetoxmarket.ca.
ADD IT TO YOUR DIET
You’ll be constantly reaching for more of our kale chips—they’re that addictive.
Photography: Stacey Brandford
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