The green foods you pretend to like but really hate
Kale, the terrible taste in every instance.
OPINION: Kale, wheat grass and green tea - all healthy, all trendy and all of them taste terrible.
There, I said it. Kale sucks.
And yet, few are prepared to admit it. If you're not on a health kick, a juice detox or a bootcamp programme, you can forget about joining the cool club. Healthy is trendy, green is clean and even Disney is on board. Better living everyone.
Green tea is an acquired taste.
Not too long ago, we were sitting down in front of our televisions of an evening, watching cooking show contestants make deliciously fattening food in tiny portions. These days, those same shows are pock-marked with contestants who promote "clean eating" - the vegans, the alternative flour-users (spelt pasta anyone?) and the paleo-pushers. You can't even Google celebrity chefs these days without being blasted about their health food cookbook or green juice cleanse recipe.
READ MORE:
* Alternatives to eating kale
* Hepatitis from green tea
* #stuffpeoplepretendtolike
Even chef Pete Evans is on board, looking tanned, fit and impossibly gaunt. If the rhetoric on his website, The Paleo Way, is to be believed, Pete is a one man paleo idol.
"They say the proof is in the pudding, and if hearing Pete speak about The Paleo Way isn't enough to get you excited, almost nothing will," the site claims.
It's a bit cheeky, putting "pudding" in there. Google "Pete Evans pudding", and your top choices include a dessert made with coconut, chia seeds and water. Delish.
Sometimes, I think we just have to admit to ourselves, that we aren't eating this trendy green stuff because we love it, we're doing it because it's the done thing.
These last few days I have been trying to like green tea. For years, people have been harping on about how good it is for you, how it tastes delicious and they drink it all the time. So, after years of being a staunch black tea lover (scandal, with milk, made from cows!), I decided to try and get on the bandwagon and learn to love green tea.
Because, let's be real, it's an acquired taste. Like grass, and nothing like wine.
Cup 1: Tastes like weeds and water. Sucks all the moisture out of my mouth. Get three sips in then knock back the rest in one go to avoid tasting it too much.
Cup 2: Have gone for the "with citrus" kind. Better. Seems the only way to like it is to mask the true flavour with other flavours. Advice from social media friends is to add honey or jasmine. They say it takes two days to get used to it.
Cup 3: Pull teabag out early. Drink while typing to try and pretend like it isn't happening.
Conclusion: Green tea is healthy. Being healthy is trendy. Ergo, people say they like green tea.
Probably the best example of healthy stuff that tastes terrible is kale. Classed as a "super food" and a "cruciferous vegetable", it can save you from everything, including cancer.*
Other than its purported healthiness, there are no other redeeming features for kale. None. In salads, it's the fibrous bits of rope that are ruining your salad. In smoothies, it's the underlying dirt flavour and slight chewiness. And when chipped in the oven, it's just salty, cooked lettuce, and nothing like chips at all.
No-one likes salty, cooked lettuce.
The problem with this health food craze, is not only the expense (trendy foods cost a lot, you know) but the constant one-upsmanship. Just as you've incorporated more quinoa into your diet, farro takes centre stage. Go organic? You should be foraging. Cut back on fats? You should only eat fats.
I think it's time for the world to come clean. In order to truly be 'on trend', it seems the only thing to do is to become a vegan, take up making your own almond/rice/soy milk, don a paisley Fair Trade kaftan and head for the hills where we will start a self-sufficient community with nothing but poorly converted caravans and our Kiwi know-how.
I think it's time to employ a little logic. I'm not against healthy eating, I'm all for it. But must we do everything to such extremes?
Of course, the simpler thing to do would be to get back to basics and stop looking for quick fixes: exercise, enjoy your meat and three vege and get more sleep.
Your call.
* Unproven, but a common claim online.
- Stuff
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