KALE IS A form of green or purple muff cabbage, in which the central leaves do not form a head. It is considered to be closer to wild cabbage than most domesticated forms. The species Brassic a oleracea contains a wide array of vegetables including broccoli, cauliflower, collard greens, and brussels sprouts.

Kale provides valuable cardiovascular support, with cholesterol-lowering ability. Our liver uses cholesterol as a basic building block to product bile acids. Bile acids are specialized molecules that aid in the digestion and absorption of fat through a process called emulsification. These molecules are usually stored in fluid form in our gall bladder, and when we eat a fat-containing meal, they get released into the intestine where they help ready the fat for interaction with enzymes and eventual absorption up into the body.

When we eat kale, fiber-related nutrients in this cruciferous vegetable bind together with some of the bile acids in the intestine in such a way that they stay inside the intestine and pass out of our body in a bowel movement, rather than getting absorbed along with the fat they have emulsified. When this happens, our liver needs to replace the lost bile acids by drawing upon our existing supply of cholesterol, and, as a result, our cholesterol level drops down. Kale contains this cholesterol-lowering benefit whether it is raw or cooked. However, a recent study has shown that the cholesterol-lowering ability of raw kale improves significantly when it is steamed.

Juicing Kale allows us to take in so much more than eating and because the pulp has been removed the body get nutrenients immediately. My personal opinion is that there is no other way to detox and feed nutreints at the same time.

In fact, when the cholesterol-lowering ability of steamed kale was compared with the prescription drug cholestyramine, kale bound 42% as many bile acids (based on a standard of comparison involving total dietary fiber). Amongst all of the cruciferous vegetables, only collard greens scored higher at 46%.

I was taught as a child that when you cook anything the liquid you see is the vitamins eliminated from the vegetable greens. And also when you juice, the healing for me was the amount of juice I consumed which you can't consume in regular servings of vegetables and that is one reason people often change their diets when ill and still does no good. A therapy is the amount of juice consumed and what else you consume. I hear this so many times that a family member juiced but died. I always ask the same question and that is did they fast and juice huge amounts and the answer is always the same NO! They merely added to their diet a small amount as in one glass to their existing diet which is usually what put their body in the condition it is in.

So adding one 16oz glass of any raw juice to a nutritionally starved sick person does no additional good. It is like doing nothing at all. For my quick amazing reversal of cancer was also a great deal of praying to God and Jesus and even though I have always prayed all day long, my cancer was just another way to love them even more. The love God and Jesus has for us comes back at us and I could feel it.

Cancer Protection

Without sufficient intake of antioxidants, our oxygen metabolism can become compromised, and we can experience a metabolic problem called "oxidative stress." Without sufficient intake of anti-inflammatory nutrients, regulation of our inflammatory system can become compromised, and we can experience the problem of chronic inflammation. Oxidative stress and chronic inflammation - and the combination of these metabolic problems-are risk factors for development of cancer. We've seen research studies on 5 specific types of cancer-including bladder cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer, ovarian cancer, and prostate cancer-and intake of cruciferous vegetables (specifically kale). As a group, these studies definitely show cancer preventive benefits from kale intake, and in some cases, treatment benefits as well.

Within the flavonoids, kaempferol is a spotlight antioxidant in kale, followed by a flavonoids called Quercetin. But recent research has also made it clear that at least 45 different antioxidant flavonoids are provided in measurable amounts by kale.

We have yet to see research on kale's omega-3 content and inflammation, but we would expect this kind of research to show the omega-3s in kale to be an important part of kale's anti-inflammatory benefits. It only takes 100 calories of kale to provide us with 25-35% of the National Academy of Sciences' public health recommendation for the most basic omega-3 fatty acid (alpha-linolenic acid, or ALA). We suspect that this amount will be plenty to show direct anti-inflammatory benefits from routine kale intake.

We also have yet to see specific research on inflammation and kale's vitamin K content. But we know that kale is a spectacular source of vitamin K (one cup of kale provides far more micrograms of vitamin K than many other foods) and we also know that vitamin K is a key nutrient for helping regulate our body's inflammatory process. Taken in combination, we expect these two facts about vitamin K to eventually get tied together in health research that shows kale to be an exceptional food for lowering our risk of chronic inflammation and associated health problems.

I have brought Kale into our daily juicing. A really tasty drink is 2 bunches of kale, apples, an entire costco bag of carrots or 2 - 5 lb. bags of carrots, one entire cabbage and 2 good size onions always juice onions and you won't taste them in this drink and this drink is wonderful. I juice a half a Costco bag of red delouses apples, two kale bunches washed and folded and put into the juicer with the fold up. two onions the entire cabbage I put it in a washed orange juice clear container that I wash each time and I replace often with a new container.

References

• "Cabbage: Natural Weight-Loss Food", http://health.howstuffworks.com/ wellness/food-nutrition/natural-foods/natural-weight-loss-food-cabbage-ga.htm.
• http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=19
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabbage
• Jessica Fraser, "Eating cabbage and brussels sprouts kills cancer cells, researchers find", http://www.naturalnews.com/020741.html.
• fhcrc.org/about/pubs/ center_news/2007 /jul/2007_0730_br3_veggies.html.
• fhcrc.org/about/ne/news/2002/ 06/20/radio.html.
• bcm.edu/cnrc/consumer/nyc/vol3_03/ glucosinolates.htm.
• Jeremy E. Kasow, M.D. http://www.drkaslow.com/html/thyroid.html