ginny wilken said:
>>Boy, Rachel; you must be getting some really old, nasty collards! I could
eat them raw, and always just steam or stir-fry them for a couple of
minutes - just long enough to wilt. Occasionally I'll save the bottoms of
the stems for juice or to puree for my dog, but I don't have any trouble
eating them cooked with the leaves.

The kale and collard greens I get are not OLD.  They are fresh picked the
day of the Farmers' market.  They are usually very large with firm, often
thick stems.  Over the past 12 or more years, I have had cooking students
who tried just steaming kale or collards and found them bitter--not bitter
like coffee or dandelion greens, but more bitter than foods they were used
to eating.  When they tried them only steamed briefly, some found them hard
to digest--gas promoting.

Kale, collards, and broccoli, have well developed stems; these highly
nutritious greens are very hardy.  This fibrous structure is part of the
plant's protective mechanism and may deter predators.  It also helps the
plants stay upright during rough weather.  From all that I have read, the
cooking process can be beneficial for some foods, for breaking open the cell
wall so that the goodies (nutrients) are more accessible.  The nutrients are
locked up in the plants cell, they are less bio-available to animals such as
humans who cannot digest cellulose.  Cooking breaks open the envelope,
releasing the nutrients.

There are studies which have shown that the betacarotene and lycopene
absorption, is greater when carrots or tomatoes are cooked, than when
consumed raw.  Similarly, some studies have shown that the vitamic C
delivery into the blood stream is greater for cooked than raw vegetables.
When cooked or consumed with fats, lyocpene and betacarotene absorptions are
also enhanced.    I am not suggesting cooking vegetables beyond recognition
or to the grey, wimply, water logged stage.  Rather, cooking until tender
and easily eaten and digested.

Steaming requires a relatively high heat.  One can steam a vegetable briefly
at a high temperature, or simmer it slowly and longer and a lower
temperature.  They key is not to let it turn dingy grey.

In my experience, sauteed, melt in your mouth hardy greens are more pleasant
than briefly cooked, crisp tender kale or collards. My students have, over
the years, prefered greens I or my husband made this way and could not get
over the difference.  We eat the stems, altough, like some broccoli, the
bottom parts can at times be "woody," so one might  need to discard a
portion of the stems.  We eat the cooked stems with the leaves.  The
variation in flavor of the stems can be marked, depending upon the season
and weather.  The sweetest stems, as I mentioned, are found after the first
frost when the freezing does something to the sugars in the greens.

Note:  The size and age of the plant makes a difference.  Tender immature
mustard greens are mild and pleasant, even when raw, whereas older, larger
ones often taste better to me when cooked.

The soil in Toledo is not as rich as the soil in Seattle, Washington, where
I lived for many years, nor is it as good as much of the soil in Ann Arbor,
Michigan, where Don and I lived for a time. The kale, collards, kabocha,
buttercutp, sweet dumpling, and hokaido squash we got there was far and away
more flavorful and sweeter than the same vegetables we have gotten in
Toledo.  The soil here is deficient in selenium, I am told, and surely other
things.  Nevertheless, the broccoli I get fresh picked, locally grown but
not organic, from the farmers' market here in Toledo looks and tastes better
than supermarket broccoli.  If looks great after 5 days in the fridge and
looks and tastes even better than the old, tired shipped in organic broccoli
we often see in the health food store.   (Sometimes the organic shipped in
broccoli looks good, but not always.

I choose locally grown, non-organic as much as possible to support local
growers and get the freshest produce.  In the winter I resort to health food
store and supermarket produce, and do find decent kale and collards at the
health food store, though I pay a lot more for it.

Rambling again, but catching up on digests,

Rachel