Q&A for How to Eat Celery

Sure. All vegetables, cooked or raw, are healthy.

Celery is mostly water. So no, it will not strengthen muscles significantly. However, celery is very low calorie. It takes more calories to chew the celery than are ingested by it!

To freeze celery, you don't have to blanch first, although blanching does result in a more flavorful outcome that lasts up to a year. If you don't blanch, plan to eat your celery within a few months. Blanch celery stalks for 3 minutes before cooling and packing into freezer bags or containers.

Yes, celery and leek is a good flavor combination for soups and stews. Many soup and stew recipes start with sauteing diced onions, carrots, and celery in oil or butter before adding other ingredients. If you prefer leek, you can use leek instead of or in addition to onions.

The celery leaves could be eaten alone, if you like them. The nutritional value is fairly even, except where there is a higher water content in the stalk.

It is mostly a matter of taste. It is safe to eat celery soup cold as long as it has been stored properly in a refrigerator.

Celery is very fibrous, meaning that your smoothie might end up a little stringy. Chopping up the celery could eliminate this, although it would still be difficult to taste the celery through other ingredients.