By Carina Magyar in Vegetables — Mar 26, 2023

VI: Chard

What chard can do to your bloodstream.

Ruby chard just about ready to harvest. Photo by Markus Spiske / Unsplash

Good morning. Today is sextidi, the 6th of Germinal, Year CCXXXI. We celebrate les bettes, a leafy vegetable that cooks way down from a huge size to bite size.

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Chard is often lumped in with kale. Both are huge leafy greens that shrink as they cook, much like spinach, and have tough ribs that are removed and prepared separately or discarded. But this is a case of accidental co-evolution. Kale is a form of cabbage and chard is a form of beet. That's why, despite their similar form factor and preparation method, they taste so completely different.

I've always had sluggish blood. Every doctor visit, I have to wave away concerns about my low blood pressure. I didn't scratch or scar easily as a kid. I slept in late and never was too bothered to move quickly. Blood may be thicker than water, but my blood was thicker than blood.

This led to me suffering a stroke at age 30, then a pulmonary embolism at age 40. (I'm in no hurry to find out what 50 will do to me.) After the stroke, the doctors put me on Warfarin, a modified rat poison meant to thin my blood and prevent some of the clotting issues that created my stroke. Things were going well, so I weaned off, but then that pulmonary embolism. Since then, some big advances have been made in blood thinning pharmaceuticals, so I'm no longer a walking rat trap, and I no longer have to be deathly afraid of chard.

VI: Chard

V: Chicken

VII: Birch

V: Chicken

VII: Birch

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