21 Substitutes For Kale To Help You Through The Great Kale Shortage

They say that when telling people bad news you should just do it directly. I really agree; that’s the best way. You don’t want to drag these things out any longer than you have to, especially when the health and welfare of human beings is on the line. It is better to just report the facts to those concerned in a straightforward manner and let people do what they—YOU GUYS HOLY SHIT THERE IS A KALE SHORTAGE!

Sorry, I couldn’t hold it in anymore. Kale. Kale, guys, kale—it’s literally the most important thing. You might be laughing now, but come talk to me after trying to get your manganese from cloves and Japanese comic books.

I feel like Matthew McConaughey in Kailure to Lunch, the sequel to Failure to Launch where he won’t marry Sarah Jessica Parker because he’s already in love with kale. I also feel like Matthew McConaughey in True Detective and Dallas Buyers’ Club. But I feel ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like Matthew McConaughey in his everyday existence.  Do you even know the extent to which we are totally fucked?

I remember once when my house burned to the ground with all of my earthly belongings inside of it and all I could think about was, “Well, at least I still have kale.”

With what vegetable am I supposed to console myself now? Have you ever tried having a serious conversation with chard? You might as well be talking to yourself. I’m as bitter about this as a leafy green superfood.

We must pick up the pieces of our lives and struggle to go on. It won’t ever be the same as before this tremendous loss, which has left me caught in a kalestrom of emotion.  I am being kaled softly with this song right now. And this song is about how there’s no more kale.

It’s a terrible song. I wrote it on what you might call a tissue, or what I call “non-kale.”  I’m mentally weakened with concern about my future lack of antioxidants. Also, I’m a not a talented lyricist.

Here is a list of possible substitutes for kale:

1. Nothing. There is no substitute for kale. Ask anyone. And by “anyone,” I mean people who pay $15 for juice.

Here is a list of possible, and inherently lesser, alternatives for kale:

1. Chard

2. Green Leaf Lettuce

3. Easter basket grass

4. Spinach

5. Collard Greens

6. Collars from green shirts

7. Astroturf

8. Marijuana

9. Cabbage

10. Several $20 bills

11. Crumpled up Wise Potato Chip bags

12. A handful of the dehydrated souls they use to power Soulcycles

13. Saudi Arabian flag

14. Dandelion

15. Ramps

16. Red Leaf Lettuce spray-painted green

17. Chicory

18. Endive

19. Freeze-dried bile of any Whole Foods employee

20. Page of Braille that just repeatedly spells out the word “kale”

21. Felt