Bagged Kale?

The kale pickins have been awfully slim around my neighborhood, so I recently resorted to buying bagged kale from Trader Joe's.  It looked fresh and the quanity seemed equivalent in price to a loose bunch, so I figured I'd give it a try.

The first thing I noticed was that it wasn't organic.  The last organic bunch I'd bought was filled with- well, you know, so I wasn't too upset about that.  But then I noticed that it said "greens for cooking" and "cut, cleaned & ready to cook".  Why no raw love?  Perhaps because the kale leaves had been chopped with the stems?  Nevertheless, I washed the leaves thoroughly (only one or two cootified pieces per bag) and made my salad using Domestic Affair's dragon dressing, as recommended by Food Feud.

The stems are hiding; they know they're not wanted.

After the first two bites containing stems I knew this wasn't the solution to my kale drought.  And, even after I'd picked out the stems, the leaves were still inexplicably, overly bitter- despite my mildly sweet dressing.  I couldn't face another lunch of bitter grossness so I unpacked my prepared lunch portions, picked out the zillions of stems, and cooked the pre-dressed kale with chick peas, raisins, Braggs, and lots of Garam Masala.  Then I re-packed my lunches and hoped for the best.  It was nervy expecting cooked kale to be tasty at room temperature, but compared to the previous day's atrocity it was a gourmet meal.  There was still something off about it- it was too tough and sat in my stomach like a boulder, but as long as it was edible I didn't want it to go to waste.

Perhaps the bagged kale would be convenient for cooked recipes, but I'm still not sold on the taste; I'm going to stick with the fresh variety, de-stemmed.  Please note: try this at your own risk.  Sharing is not recommended; this kind of kale could turn someone against it for good!  I wonder if I am the only one who has had such a negative experience with bagged kale, or am I simply the only one who has ever purchased it?