Eat Your Greens - Kale Chips

by Nicki Gostin, Posted Feb 16th 2010 @ 12:00PM

Every day we're bombarded with encouragement from nutritionists and health food experts to eat more leafy greens, especially the dark green varieties. Low in calories, high in fiber, packed with vitamin A, blah, blah, blah -- not exactly the kind of stuff you get excited about.

But Amy Hamberry may have found a way to change your mind: The Brooklyn, N.Y., mom is selling her own kale chips.

The former commercial illustrator and one-time kindergarten teacher stumbled into this new, unexpected profession when she married the owner of a neighborhood health-food store, New York Naturals.

The store's California kale chip supplier was always running out of stock (um, who would have guessed there was such high demand?), so Amy decided to start making them herself. It took three months of daily experiments before she was satisfied with the results.

"We had to figure out a consistency," Hamberry explained to Slashfood. "It was hard because the kale is different each time we get it. There are a lot of variables involved."

Other ingredients in the chips are cashew nuts, cayenne, red bell peppers and lemon juice. "The chips are not processed at all," she says. "It's all raw food that's put into a blender and then spread onto kale. It's 100% raw."

"My angle is to make a food that's made with vegetables that I'm going to enjoy eating like a snack that I can go to instead of eating a crappy snack food. I can enjoy eating a bag of kale chips and then I don't have to crave potato chips."

We tried the kale chips here at Slashfood. They definitely won't be replacing potato chips for most of us, but they do taste strangely similar to the powdered seasoning packets that come with instant ramen. It's a taste you either like, or you don't -- you be the judge.

Filed Under: Business, Features
Tags: brooklyn, chips, health food, kale, kale chips, raw food

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

2-17-2010 @9:31AM Jon said... From the title, I thought this post would be a recipe for kale chips. I guess I was thinking of the old Slashfood, which had recipes and informative posts about food, not just glorified press releases.

Anyway, kale chips are easy to make. Cut kale into bite-sized pieces, toss it with oil, sprinkle it with salt, and spread it in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Bake for about 10 minutes. These kale chips taste surprisingly like popcorn, though the texture is more like a crumbly potato chip. They're best eaten hot, as they get soggy when stored.
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