Sometime in recent years, you may have noticed something new on your plate: a big leaf, darker than most salad greens, and with edges so ruffled they might have served it in the 1800s as an inspiration for Victorian-style dress.
And if its appearance was striking, its taste was even more so.
Kale, the bitterest green, was thrust on American palates earlier this decade. Some accounts blame Gwyneth Paltrow: She appeared on Ellen Degeneres’ talk show in 2011 and taught us all how to make kale chips. Maybe we should blame whoever dubbed it a “superfood.” It’s possible the growing aversion to sugar threw us running so fast away from sweet that we landed in the depths of bitter.
Whatever the cause, kale became a salad staple by the late Obama administration. But it became something more. It became almost an act of penance.
Americans seek out kale more in January than any other month, according to a study of Google Trends by Atlantic writer Amanda Mull. In fact, kale, typically lower down on the hierarchy of searched-for-edible-leaves, surpasses even spinach in the first few weeks of the year. It’s obvious what’s going on here: Americans, ashamed of their holiday gluttony, and resolving to “eat healthily” or live well, turn to the internet, maybe even to Gwyneth, to find a way to make kale edible.
It is a tell. Anything we only do out of a self-regarding New Year’s resolution is not something with cultural staying power.
And so we shouldn’t be surprised that demand for kale is wilting.
Sweetgreen, a trendy lunch spot that sells very costly salads in expensive cities, reported recently that kale sales were down. The Atlantic’s Mull also found that searches for kale are going down. That probably doesn’t reflect a greater familiarity but a lesser interest — after all, it takes expertise and know-how to make kale edible.
Kale sales, sure enough, fell by 8 million pounds from 2016 to 2017.
Just imagine that 8 million pounds of uneaten kale. That is comparable to the weight of the Eiffel Tower, which is 14 million pounds. It’s not that we’re becoming less healthy or all are becoming carnivores. Kale’s 6% year-over-year drop came amid growth in overall salad consumption.
Kale has become our unloved green.
