Kale or no Kale???

[Winnie77]

Lately I've heard so many mixed things about Kale, I've always used it as a first food and always have recommended it to others I'm helping but yesterday I was told some pretty scary things regarding Kale in my question yesterday, and then last night I was told Kale along with spinach (which I do not use) was also high in oxilates.

So if kale is in question bad I don't want to be recommending it to another person again.

What's your opinions on Kale and also what veggies do you all recommend as a good starter veggies and also high in calcium?

I've always said Kale, dandelion greens, Arugula, broccoli, to start .



This was what I heard yesterday in my question on another topic
"There's much back and forth on the net about this, but if you look up kale, heavy metals you'll see all sorts of stuff saying that it tends to uptake heavy metals and can also be very pesticide laden. I only know because a friend lost ALL his hair and he's a health freak that happened to be eating kale daily at the time. His hair is still missing despite cutting the kale so who knows, but figured it's worth letting you know at least. Can't remember the issue now, but there was also another thread where kale was a staple in their diet"

[CritterMom]

Kale is not on any of the high oxylate lists, and in fact is high in calcium which is part of a low oxylate diet. I believe it erroneously gets dumped in with geuine high oxylate veggies because it, like they, is a dark green, leafy vegetable.

That said, I have always only fed organic kale because it DOES have tons of insecticides dumped on it during conventional farming. I have mostly stopped feeding kale because supply chain issues mean there is seldom organic kale to be found in my stores, AND because the $#&^%*& stuff starts turning yellow so fast that I always end by throwing most of it away, AND my squirrel much prefers romaine. Especially the stumps, after they have been trimmed. If anyone ever wants to know if it was me that burgled the grocery store, all the fat sugar snap peas will be gone and the romaine will all have been robbed of their stumps!

[Charley Chuckles]

Several years ago I saw where my boy Conker pee'd and it was on his wood table, it looked like a plastic cling wrap was over it kinda crystal looking 🤔
I happen to be going to my vet so I took a pic and showed. The first question I was asked was has he ate kale lately, I replied yes just today.
It was the kale that did it but I believe they told me not to worry, I can not remember why it did that all I know is I never fed it again, not even to me 🙄
If I can find the pic I'll post it 👍

[Winnie77]

Thank you . It's always something that comes up. All of the ones I have ever rehabbed absolutely love sugar snap peas I couldn't keep enough of them . And oh man does the organic veggies spoil fast lol I always put veggies in the food dehydrator just before they spoil and give them as treats almost like a chip.
I tell everyone the fur babies all get organics and we humans get can veggies lol and that's the truth Ha 🤦*♀️

[Winnie77]

Several years ago I saw where my boy Conker pee'd and it was on his wood table, it looked like a plastic cling wrap was over it kinda crystal looking 🤔
I happen to be going to my vet so I took a pic and showed. The first question I was asked was has he ate kale lately, I replied yes just today.
It was the kale that did it but I believe they told me not to worry, I can not remember why it did that all I know is I never fed it again, not even to me 🙄
If I can find the pic I'll post it 👍

Oh wow that's scary 😨 so I guess there is a lot of back and forth about Kale,
Aghh I always try to tell people start off with a high calcium veggie and Kale was always my go to until lately reading about everything regarding it.
I'm always paranoid about nutrition I've seen what MBD looks like and it's heart breaking 💔

[Diggie's Friend]

Recommend feeding organic baby greens and blanching most of them 90 sec. and cooking the kale a bit longer.

This begins the process of digesting the greens, that lowers their high pH and inhibits bladder crystals.

Boiling also destroys much of the oxalic acid; and though moderate in the leaves of Kale, washing out the insoluble calcium oxalate crystal

Earthbound organic offers frozen Kale, so you don't end up wasting it.

https://www.earthboundfarm.com/produ...-organic-kale/

[McCarthy]

I can't stand kale and would never do this to my buddies!

No surprised they steal our pizzas all the time!

[CritterMom]

I agree with your assessment - I was amazed in the 2000's to discover that it was used for something other than to decorate the shaved ice they kept refrigerated items in at buffets and cafeterias!

But squirrels actually like it!! Of course they also drink their own pee, so perhaps culinary advice isn't really their thang.

[Winnie77]

😆 🤣 😂

[Diggie's Friend]

Oh my, attack of the pizza squirrels; poor pizza!!

The greens that squirrels chose in wild, are the sweeter tender new leaves of spring from their food trees

Sweet maple, poplars, silver birch, are sweet; basswood that is noted to taste like asparagus

Short term (90 sec.) boiling of lower oxalate organic baby garden greens, reduces the bitterness;

while making otherwise bitter leaves more appealing to some squirrels and more digestible too.

Feeding raw organic fresh fruit in greater proportion than greens, mirrors that consumed by tree squirrels in the wild.

supplies digestive enzymes that improves the digestion of other foods in the meal.

[JLM27]

Kale is not on any of the high oxylate lists, and in fact is high in calcium which is part of a low oxylate diet. I believe it erroneously gets dumped in with geuine high oxylate veggies because it, like they, is a dark green, leafy vegetable.

That said, I have always only fed organic kale because it DOES have tons of insecticides dumped on it during conventional farming. I have mostly stopped feeding kale because supply chain issues mean there is seldom organic kale to be found in my stores, AND because the $#&^%*& stuff starts turning yellow so fast that I always end by throwing most of it away, AND my squirrel much prefers romaine. Especially the stumps, after they have been trimmed. If anyone ever wants to know if it was me that burgled the grocery store, all the fat sugar snap peas will be gone and the romaine will all have been robbed of their stumps!

You might could roast the kale to keep it from going bad.