Kale Smoking Fad Catches Fire â âKalingâ Is Hot
Are you ordering a kale smoothie or drizzling some raspberry vinaigrette on those ânewly discoveredâ curly miracle leaves that Southerners have been eating since Jefferson Davis was a sprout? Well guess what you old fart? Youâre old. Itâs no longer fashionable or chic â or whatever the word is these days â to eat or drink kale, âcause now the kids are smoking it! Thatâs right, the kids are now smoking the kale! The new trend is called âkaling.â LA kids started passing aroundÂ glassine baggies full of dried, smokable kale, stamped with the likeness of actress Mindy Kaling, lately of The Mindy ProjectÂ and previously from the American version of The Office. The trend is moving eastward, and fast! Kaleâs not a banned substance, and therefore not illegal. Itâs food, for crying out loud. But kids arenât self-medicating these days anyway â theyâre self-mindykaling â and not to get high â but to get healthy. Thatâs what kids do these days! They smoke to get healthy! Ainât that a blip? The whole damn worldâs turned upside-down! Can can a person actually gain health benefitsÂ from smoking a healthy substance? What good is inhaling a generous blast of vitamins A and C, only to have your lungs turnÂ into a vast network of calcified tubes in the process? National Report asked Dr. Leda Horstwasser, pulmonary specialist at Bostonâs Massachusetts General Hospital about the risks and/or benefits if any, of âkaling.â âSmoking is not good for you,â said Horstwasser. âIt takes a toll on your entire cardiopulmonaryÂ system. It affects your blood pressure, metabolism, and so on. So I wouldnât suggest smoking kale, in the same way that I wouldnât suggest injecting spinach or carrots directly into the bloodstream. Those vegetables are also beneficial, but no sane person would put them in a needle and mainlineÂ them, now would they? I must stress, however, âeverything in moderationâ should be the general rule. Even with something like kale which is nutritionally beneficial, if you were to eat or drink too much of it, you could disrupt thyroid function. So just be sensible about what you put into your body. And smoking it? Just donât.â Do you hear that, kids? Put down the pipe. Pick up a ball or a tennis racket or a Frisbee and goÂ outside and run around in the fresh air for kaleâs sake! Quit burying your nose in all your hand-held devices that make you near-sighted and give you the carpal tunnel in your thumbs with your tablets and iPhones and earpods and obesities and whatnot. And keepÂ off my lawn while youâre at it, whippersnappers!