No matter how hard Popeye the Sailorman tried to promote spinach, it continues to get a bad rep among the masses. However, more and more people are coming to appreciate spinach's nutrition-rich composition, and today spinach is more popular than Popeye could have ever anticipated. If you're still on the edge about whether or not you should give spinach a try, there's plenty of convincing evidence that suggests spinach is well worth eating.
Low in Fat, High in Nutrition
Spinach is a super low-fat, low-calorie food. You can eat an entire 3 ounces of spinach for us 23 calories. It's also loaded with goodness, including:
- Vitamin K. Spinach gives you 987 percent of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin K in just a one-cup serving. Vitamin K is important for strong bones and helps prevent heart disease.
- Vitamin A. You get 105 percent of the RDI of vitamin A in a serving of spinach. Vitamin A is essential for growth and development as well as ocular health and vision support.
- Manganese. Bone up on your manganese with spinach. It contains 84 percent of the RDI. Manganese supports healthy brain and nerve systems and helps to regulate the blood sugar.
- Folate. Spinach contains folate, which helps to support the healthy division of cells throughout the body.
- Iron. A serving of spinach gives you roughly one-third of the iron you need each day. Iron supports the health of your blood and cells, so your body's organ systems function like they should.
There are also significant amounts of copper, calcium, potassium, and fiber in spinach. That's not to mention vitamins B2, B6, B1, C, and E.
Funnily, the English actually named spinach; they originally referred to it as the "Spanish" vegetable, and people started calling it "spinach" for brevity. The name stuck, obviously.