The Horrible Truth About the World's Worst Vegetable

Like so many other people, my introduction to kale came courtesy of an educational program that NBC ran during the '80s and '90s called Cheers. On a 1990 episode, bartender/struggling actor Woody lands a commercial gig for Veggie Boy — a V8 knockoff of a texture and a shade of green that you would never willingly put in your body via any orifice, but particularly not one with taste buds.

Woody only takes his first taste of Veggie Boy after filming the ad, and is horrified to learn that he'd endorsed a drink he couldn't stand.

So he did what any of us would have done in that situation, assuming we're all sitcom characters, and had his psychiatrist friend, Frasier, hypnotize him into enjoying Veggie Boy.

First, however, Frasier had to try it himself.

But the hypnosis worked, and after taking his next sip of the glurpy green goo, Woody happily shouted, "You can really taste the kale!"

Thanks, but no. I will not taste the kale.

That was when I was young and single. Now that I'm middle-aged and married to a woman who swears she has my best interests at heart, I have been made to taste the kale on countless occasions.

It's supposed to be good for us, you see. 

If you've never tried kale, imagine large crinkly leaves of lettuce that somehow retain a texture that is at once rubbery yet unpleasantly crunchy, no matter how long you boil it, broil it, fry it, sauté it, or whatever the hell else my lovely bride has done to make Hell Lettuce almost-but-never-quite palatable. 

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Torn into manageable smaller-than-bite-size pieces in an Italian soup loaded up with so much parm that you have to wonder about any remaining health benefits was the one and only way Melissa reliably got me to ingest it. 

Today, however, is Liberation Day. Today I learned that everything you thought you knew about kale is a lie. I used to believe that hardly anyone seemed to have heard of kale before Veggie Boy made it (in)famous because it isn't actually food, but today I know it for a fact.

Thanks to professional carnivore Sama Hoole, I just learned that kale only "became a superfood because a publicist in New York invented a trade association that did not exist."

"Before all that," Hoole continued, "the biggest kale buyer in America was Pizza Hut. Not for the menu. They bought it by the ton, fourteen thousand pounds of it in 2012, and laid it round the salad bar to hide the ice."

Kale, in short, was the stuff they put food on.

"Nobody was meant to eat it. It was the doily."

I did a little digging, and Hoole might have actually undersold the mostly imaginary American Kale Association's origins and effort. On the nutrition side, Hoole is on shakier ground — but maybe not by much, if you're getting older and what you need is more protein and iron.

"You could eat a kilo of the stuff, which would take you most of an afternoon and do something permanent to your jaw, and still not catch up with two eggs [worth of digestible protein]. The iron is the non-haem sort your gut mostly turns away at the door."

Devoid of the iron and protein Melissa thought we were getting and with all the chewability of a truck tire, kale is just celery for masochists. As soon as this column goes live, I'll forward it to my lovely bride with the note: "Never again."

So it's OK. You don't have to pretend to like kale any longer.

None of us do.

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2026/08/27/its-official-you-can-stop-pretending-to-like-kale-n4956606