kale in a cone

i’m off the fries.

i’m off the chips.

so much for my blog(s) name(s).  ah well.

(i might have to change my blog banner picture to skinny mashed potatoes in a cone.)

in an effort to better understand food and nutrition and health and to avoid cancer at all costs, i’ve been googling a LOT lately.  best foods to eat.  worst foods to eat.  absolute worst foods to eat.  what are the top 10 worst foods EVER in the history of the WORLD?  there are several lists out there, but potato chips and french fries make just about everyone’s lists.  i always thought they were considered unhealthy due to the fact they were fried and anything fried = fat.  but it’s still a vegetable, meaning there had to be some underlying goodness in there somewhere, right?

wrong.

so, apparently it’s not the fat and calories.  it’s the acrylamides.  acrylamides are cancer causing carcinogens formed when potatoes are cooked (and browned) at a high temperature.  what?  not even baking (and browning) fries in the oven (which i did at home) is safe.  oh man.  this news was a big fat bummer. and it’s not even current news. it’s almost 10 years old!!! arrrrrghhh, i get so mad when i don’t know this sort of information. (it’s still OK to boil a potato or to bake a potato whole.  so i still eat potatoes, just not in snack form.)

but now i know and now i’m done with fries.  so as a snack i’ve been making kale chips.  they’re kind of addicting.

i’m not sure they make for a very pretty picture.

kale in a cone.

(ok, kale in an upside down birthday hat.)

there are loads of recipes online.  i pretty much just bought a bunch of kale, picked off leaves, washed ’em up good, dried ’em up good, tossed them in a bowl with some olive oil and sea salt and baked them @ 275° for 20 mins or so til crisp, flipping them once and turning the pan in the oven.  does that sound like an official recipe?

like i said, they’re really quite good.  ya just don’t get enough with one baking pan (which is probably a good thing.  portion control is not my strong suit.)  the leaves shrink up like spinach does.  you end up with a nice little snack bowlful.  small serving for 1.  not nearly as easy as opening a bag of chips and mowing the whole bag, yet not as fattening and deadly either.

do you think sometime in the future when the world gets a little more serious and educated about food and nutrition new snack bowls will be made with the words nuts, snacks, baby carrots, kale chips?  wouldn’t that be sumpthin’?

never gonna happen.