Ours are an heirloom (non-hybridized) variety called Red Russian Kale, if you can grow your own, or get them from the farmer’s markets the heirloom varieties usually have higher nutritional value, but kale is a powerhouse of nutrients anyway, so whatever variety you get will be good (of course, organic is the best too, if you can).

The difference in the way they look is also because mine have flattened during the ‘massaging’ and dehydrating process. Yours probably will too, but they may still be curlier than mine.

Really you can’t taste, or smell the vinegar in this recipe. I loathe the smell and taste of vinegar, and I’m fine with this. But since you have them at home, and I’m guessing you’d have to buy the cider vinegar, give the lemon juice a try. I’m sure they will be beautiful. If they are mild tasting lemons I’d say try the same amount as the recipe calls for, if they are very tart lemons maybe halve the amount (unless you really love that lemon tartness like I do).

As an alternative to the cider vinegar, you could use a bit of lemon juice or very fermented kombucha (if you have some).

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Kale juice is excellent when mixed in with other fresh vegetable juices, but you probably don’t want to have more than your 1/3 of your juice mix to be kale juice, because it can be quite strong tasting. If the leaves are really large you may have to cut them, but smaller leaves can just be fed into your juicer just like you would with parsley. I’d suggest using your celery or carrot to push the kale leaves through, and I think it would go very nicely with your daily carrot and celery juice. I prefer blended drinks to vegetable juices at the moment (both are great for you and each has it’s advantages), and kale usually features quite prominently in my green smoothies too. The only thing I’d advise is that you don’t put kale into anything that you are going to keep for any length of time before drinking. I usually make up about 2 litres of blended green smoothie and it takes me the whole morning to finish it off. That’s fine if I consume it within about 3 hours of blending it up, but when I’ve tried to keep them to drink later in the day I find the kale gets really pungent after sitting for much longer than 2-3 hours. If you don’t mind that radish/mustard type pungent flavor you might enjoy it, but I find it can get a bit too strong for me.

There is a caution with kale, or any of the cabbage family, and this is what I really wanted to look up before I answered because I know it’s easy to consume large amounts of vegetables in their juiced form. According to The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods by Michael T. Murray and Joseph Pizzorno “Members of the cabbage family contain goitrogens, naturally occurring substances that can interfere with the functioning of the thyroid glad. Dietary goitrogens are usually of no clinical importance unless they are consumed in large amounts or there is coexisting iodine deficiency. Individuals with already existing and untreated thyroid problems may want to avoid consumption of cabbage-family vegetables in their raw form for this reason.”

So that’s the first caution, and the second is, “Kale also contains significant amount of oxalate. Individuals with a history of oxalate-containing kidney stones should avoid overconsuming kale and other oxalate-containing greens.”
~ The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods

Since it’s possible to consume much larger quantities of vegetables in their juiced form than if you have to chew them up as in a salad for instance, you might just want to keep that in mind if you have problems with either of those two conditions, or ask your health care practitioner to be certain. But other than that kale is one of the best, most nutritious vegetables there is.