By: Isaac Linnen
I am a Boy Scout. Scouting has offered me many opportunities and experiences, but MAN do I hate it sometimes. There are many items that require completion, and some merit badges want me to do way too much paperwork. Recently I completed one of these paperwork centric merit badges: communications. A requirement for the badge was to write a five-minute speech and present it. Unable to come up with a professional topic, I searched my brain for the stupidest topic and decided on my seething hatred of kale. Here is that speech…
“Kale is a wild cabbage, a relative to other leafy greens like collard greens and broccoli. However, unlike these two other delicious and versatile vegetables, kale is a horrendous amalgamation of everything wrong with the food we get from the plant kingdom. It is a terrible misstep in the cultivation of natural products and should be called out as such. It fails not only in the context of a meal, but also when compared to its superior competition.
The first problems with kale come when one has the misfortune of tasting it. It has the texture of weeds and tastes like a wet paper towel lightly padded with dirt from a playground. You could only hope it would taste as good as a woodchip picked up from a playground. As the victim consumes it, the earthy after taste sets in like a volcanic ash following an eruption. This is an aftertaste that persists even after days of purging your tongue with Listerine. This terrible after taste is the largest sin a food can commit. Though not all foods need to taste a specific way, a taste that doesn’t make one want to spit out their meal would be preferable.
Due to its failures as a food, kale’s negative attributes are only compounded upon due to the competition of its fellow vegetables. Many decide to use it as a substitute for lettuce, a good, hearty vegetable. Instead of adding a special flare to their salads, they ruin the sanctity of the staple meal and create a bowl of green dirt with some carrots sprinkled throughout. Even out of the context of a salad, other vegetables still beat it out on their own. For example, potatoes are one of the best vegetables to exist and kale does not come close to taking their title. Potatoes are made into chips, a delightfully tasty snack. Kale chips on the other hand are an absolutely abysmal idea, that should be wiped from the human psyche. Mediocre vegetables like brussels sprouts are still leagues better than the food equivalent of stubbing the pinkie toe into a table. This feeling should never be experienced and certainly tasted.
Though some prefer kale as a substitute for other, objectively better, vegetables, this does not explain the infestation kale has had in healthy eating. Kale is in bowls, smoothies, drinks, and other foods where it does not belong. Healthy eating should be encouraged across the world, but the reaches of kale should be cut off at their roots like the weed it is. A large factor of convincing people to eat better food is to make it taste good. Kale does not taste good, so it has an openly detrimental relationship with healthy eating campaigns. If more people decided to eat better vegetables, kale could be removed from many diets.
Overall, kale is a terrible vegetable and should no longer be thought of as an acceptable substitute for better and tastier veggies because someone believes it is “healthier”. Its reach in healthy eating and society should be eradicated. Kale. Is. Bad.”
After I gave this impassioned speech to talking circles on a computer screen, everyone clapped out of courtesy. There wasn’t much feedback given besides, “Good Job” and “That was funny.” I got the communications merit badge, though what I had to do to get it will always stay on my mind, if not on my plate .
