Is spinach a superfood?
By Paul Ladewig RDN, MPS
Lately it feels like every vegetable gets a little spotlight time as the new superfood. Some vegetables gained fame status years before the concept of superfood existed. Perhaps one of the most well known for this, is spinach. For those of us who have watched Popeye cartoons, the sight of a person eating an entire can of spinach and then being able to lift a car or building was normal. Mostly though we just figured it was just a weird addition to a goofy cartoon. But is there some truth to it? Why did they choose spinach? Why not Brussel sprouts or carrots or green beans? When I was a kid I always figured it was because everyone hated canned spinach and it set him apart to have something so gross as his go to energy source.
But what if it was something more? What if eating spinach could help increase our athletic ability. Maybe we couldn’t lift a car, but it could help with our performance as a runner. As a dietitian my first thought was that it was a good source of Iron. Iron plays an important role in making hemoglobin; which bonds with oxygen molecules from the lungs and transport it through the body. It also helps make myoglobin which provides oxygen to muscles. This is significant because lack of oxygen to the body and muscles can lead to exhaustion, lack of stamina and other issues. In fact, many of the performance enhancement drugs that are banned are designed to artificially boost the body’s ability to use oxygen.
In addition, Spinach is also a good source of vitamin C. The body needs about 75 – 90 mg of Vitamin C a day and 30 g of spinach will provide about 8.4 mg. that same amount of spinach will provide 0.8 mg of Iron and the average person needs about 10-18 mg a day. Vitamin C is essential in assisting with the absorption of iron from the foods we eat, especially vegetable sources of iron.
So the iron and vitamin C angle could explain why our moms were right and we should be eating our spinach. The question for me is always what were the moms seeing that help them made the connection before Science could catch up and prove them right. The moral of the story is don’t discard an old wives tale right off the bat, it may just be correct and we just haven’t caught up yet.
