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So I want to try and make kale chips, baked or fried in coconut oil. I read about it somewhere, can't remember where. My concern is that when I tried adding it to my Nutribullet shakes it was so bitter I had to add a banana to tolerate it. Not going to do a banana of course. Does anyone know how to get it to not be so bitter?

dawlfin318 wrote: »

So I want to try and make kale chips, baked or fried in coconut oil. I read about it somewhere, can't remember where. My concern is that when I tried adding it to my Nutribullet shakes it was so bitter I had to add a banana to tolerate it. Not going to do a banana of course. Does anyone know how to get it to not be so bitter?

You don't have to eat kale if you don't want to, so don't feel pressured into it. I can taste the bitter in kale (and other greens...and nearly all coffees....and grapefruits....), and even a single leaf will overwhelm the rest of the ingredients in my smoothie, so I don't even bother. If I want a green smoothie, I'll use spinach instead, which blends a lot more easily.

Kale's major claims to fame are its vitamin A, C, and K, and manganese content. You can get better A and K from butter (the active form A, and K2; as opposed to beta carotene and K1, both of which need to be converted to be used) -- plus, you get the fat required to absorb those vitamins to begin with. Vitamin C is available in just about everything (including other greens, like spinach, and other vegetables, like peppers and broccoli). Manganese is also found in spinach (in fact, spinach's nutrient profile is pretty similar to kale), and...well...pretty much everything else (seriously, apparently it's even in the basic black tea you can get from the store). Spices (cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, saffron, you name it), nuts, cocoa, seeds, freshwater fish (including bass, trout, pike, and perch).

That said, in my experimentation with coffee, I found that fat plays a big role in neutralizing the bitterness, as does the quality of the coffee. I've found that I can do lattes with half & half from a local coffee shop that uses a local, high quality roaster and do it almost without any flavoring. For cheaper coffees (basically, anything from a grocery store), heavy cream in about 1-to-1, plus about a teaspoon or so of xylitol make for a pretty tasty drink.

The only way I've been able to completely neutralize the bitter flavors in coffee, though, to the point that I could taste the coffee, was with a concoction that I created based on Mark Sisson's Primal Egg Coffee -- cup of coffee, 2-3 eggs, 3 tbsp butter, 1 tsp sugar, ~1 tbsp cocoa powder, 2 tsp vanilla extract, 1/4 c whole milk, 1 tsp ground cinnamon. Yes, it sounds horrid, but throw it all in a blender and you a custard-like coffee drink that's actually pretty good. Unfortunately, it took pretty much all of that to make a drink that neutralized the bitter compounds and didn't have a flat flavor profile (seriously, I tried without the sugar one time, and the whole damn thing tasted flat, it was like the sugar acted like how salt normally acts in most cooking -- bring out the different flavors).

(Side-by-side comparison of spinach and kale, linked above -- http://www.healthaliciousness.com/nutritionfacts/nutrition-facts-compare.php )

dawlfin318 wrote: »

So I want to try and make kale chips

Kale chips...yuuuuuuummmmmmm. ;-) I don't notice bitter when I make the chips at all. I've done different flavors (malt vinegar and salt is really good, as is garlic salt). I usually tear the kale into bite size pieces, discarding the stems (or chopping it into my pupper dogs dinner). Toss the kale pieces in a TBSP or so of olive oil and seasoning(s) of choice in a ziploc bag til well coated. Spread on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake at about 350* for 10 or so minutes, watching and gently turning as necessary. They'll get dry and crispy, very fragile. Remove to a paper towel lined plate. Swat your teenager's hands away as they try to scarf them all down before you get a chance to have any <--very important. ;-)