Zorba Paster: Spinach Isn’t Just For Popeye

Every TV show you watch that features health seems to tout one superfood after another. I used to think this was a junk term. I was never taught about superfoods in medical school and, come to think of it, I was never taught much about nutrition, either.

But then, I came to see the light: If we have junk foods, then we must also have superfoods — foods Mother Nature has loaded with nutrients.

With that in mind, I went to the kingpin of eating, the Mediterranean diet. Remember that people who live along the Mediterranean Sea live longer than we do. It’s their lifestyle. They walk much more than we do. They eat much better than we do. They eat with each other, not in their cars, watching TV or texting.

But, analyze their foods and you’ll find they’re loaded with dark green leafy vegetables. The darker the color, the higher the nutrients.

So let’s hop along to our superfood of the season, the earliest crop in our gardens: spinach.

Popeye loved it because it contained lots of iron. Back in the day — 1929 to be exact — when this well-muscled cartoon character was born, iron deficiency anemia was the most common anemia in America (and on the planet).

Spinach is filled with iron — ounce for ounce, it has more than red meat. Unfortunately, oxalate, a chemical in spinach, makes some of the iron “unabsorbable.” But it’s still a good source, especially for vegetarians.

One serving of spinach, about a cup or handful, contains nearly 50 percent of the vitamin A you need, as well as some folate and vitamin C and more than 100 percent of daily vitamin K, an important factor in blood clotting. It’s also filled with magnesium and, believe it or not, omega 3 fatty acids (hmm … fish oil, move over). That doesn’t even count the flavonoids and carotenoids, types of antioxidants we usually associate with carrots.

Now, why can’t we get these health-promoting vitamins through pills and capsules? Let’s go over to the Carotene and Retinol Efficacy Trial (CARET) from the National Institutes of Health. This research was designed to see whether beta carotene stopped cancer.

Researchers halted the study early because they found that smokers who took beta carotene-loaded vitamins actually got more cancer than the placebo group. That’s right, more cancer not less.

I used to say all the time, “no-harm, no foul.” Take any supplement you want. But I am now wary of all supplements. They are industrialized substances that do not have the balance Mother Nature creates.

The superfood spinach has Mother Nature’s balance — nutrients we need in just the right amounts.

So how should we eat it? Raw is best. Or, if you take off the stems, you can add it to your next stir fry. If the raw spinach at your grocer looks wilted, go to the frozen. As for canned, well, for me that falls into the canned pea category — yuck.

And what about the traditional Wisconsin spinach salad? Not healthy. A typical recipe contains six slices of bacon, weighing in at about 300 calories per cup (about as many calories as a cup of ice cream). Unless you want a “bacon dessert,” I’d stay away from it.

Stay well.