ENTERTAINMENT

Sneaky Greens: Springfield's secret superfood

Gregory J. Holman
GHOLMAN@NEWS-LEADER.COM

Sneaky Greens is a local spice blend company that marries things like salt, peppercorns and Italian seasoning with preserved mustard greens and kale.

The company, based in Greenfield, got started in 2015 with online sales and a presence in Mama Jean's Natural Market.

Now, they're in Hy-Vee, Harter House (Eastgate Avenue), Akins Natural Foods (Battlefield Road), and — as of May 17 — nine Price Cutter stores in Springfield, Nixa and Ozark. They're also in one restaurant: Morning Day Cafe, in the Kansas City area.

It all started with a picky eater. Co-owner Doris Johnson's husband, Fred Johnson, developed kidney cancer in 2014. An operation successfully removed the tumor, but Johnson wanted to improve the family diet to help prevent the disease from recurring. "I cleaned my pantry," she said. "We stopped eating anything processed."

Still, she faced an obstacle with Fred.

"He didn't want to have anything to do with kale or mustard greens," Johnson said.

How to sneak in some dark, leafy vegetables? A lifelong gardener, Johnson equipped her family farm with a 72-foot high tunnel — essentially a form of greenhouse — paid for with a $7,000 grant from the National Resource Conservation Service, part of the USDA.

The intent was to grow produce to feed the family, which also keeps chickens for eggs and gets most of its protein from sources like deer hunted nearby.

But they found another purpose for the high tunnel.

Johnson and her daughter-in-law, Laura Greene-Johnson, came up with a way to blend seasonings with certified-organic Russian red kale and red mustard greens they grow in the same high tunnel they use for tomatoes, yellow and green squash and bushes of rosemary and thyme.

After harvest, each November and May, they wash, dry, freeze and then hand-blend the greens into shakers and grinders — all of it in a small "kale cabin" on the grounds of Doris and Fred Johnson's farm, Oriah Gardens.

Their products include salt, pepper, the Italian blend — "Pizza My Heart" — and greens blended with granulated onion or garlic. There's also "Taco Tuesday," a take on classic tear-and-cook packets of taco seasoning.

Each shaker or grinder costs $8.99, less for a refill bag that replenishes the glass containers one-and-a-half times, Greene-Johnson said. They also offer discounts on bulk orders.

Why kale and mustard greens?

"You can see it, but you can't taste it," Greene-Johnson said. "We're taking seasonings you use every day, and we're sneaking superfoods into that."

According to data posted by the Produce for Better Health Foundation, both are leafy, antioxidant-rich greens including vitamins A and C. Kale is also a good source of potassium and calcium, while mustard greens have folate and manganese.

As for Fred? He's doing well, Johnson said.

Meanwhile, she and Greene-Johnson hope to get Sneaky Greens into Whole Foods.

Sneaky Greens
sneakygreensfood.com; search "Sneaky Greens" on Facebook