Spinach: Health Benefits, How to Prepare for Maximum Benefits, and Who Should Be Careful When Eating It

Dark leafy vegetables are recommended as part of a healthy eating pattern. “They’re primarily considered nutritious countries” because they’re nutritious, Roberts said. In other words, you can get plenty of nutrients without eating a lot of calories.

The goodness of spinach

Roberts, lead author of an academic review of spinach published in the journal Food & Function in 2016, noted that spinach is a good source of vitamins A, C, and B9, or folic acid.

Seeds and nuts are superfoods – 5 best for heart health and more

One cup of cooked spinach provides 129 percent of the daily recommended amount of vitamin A for women and 105 percent of the recommended daily amount for men.

Spinach is also one of the best plant sources of lutein, a type of plant-based pigment known as a carotenoid, which has been linked to improved eye and brain health.

Some studies have focused on spinach’s thylakoids, the part of the plant cell that converts sunlight into energy. Extracts made from spinach thylakoids have been shown to increase satiety, or the feeling of being full after a meal, but Roberts said such effects have not been studied in detail with whole spinach.

But spinach is high in fiber and “most Americans need to increase their intake,” he said.

Can’t maintain an erection?Why experts say a heart attack could be next

Precautions for spinach

So what’s not to like? Although “spinach” was once used as a synonym for “nonsense,” there are some serious issues to consider.

Roberts says spinach is high in oxalates, which can interfere with your body’s ability to absorb minerals. In fact, spinach is rich in calcium, and oxalate binds to calcium in the intestines, he said.

“This can lead to the formation of kidney stones in certain people,” he says. People who are prone to kidney stones may be given a low-oxalate diet.

Roberts says boiling spinach can reduce oxalate intake.

Gout: No longer the “disease of kings” in a globalized world

Vitamin K, which plays an important role in blood clotting, can interfere with warfarin, which thins the blood.

Roberts said it’s less of an issue with newer blood thinners, but people taking warfarin need to be “consistent with their vitamin K intake,” which helps stabilize warfarin levels. .

And if you decide to serve spinach, perhaps don’t use Popeye as a role model.

Fresh is best

“The fresher, the better,” Roberts said of all fruits and vegetables. So at the grocery store, I asked for fresh bunches of spinach rather than bags or plastic containers, assuming they were probably more recently harvested.

If you buy raw, consume it immediately, he said. “Do not leave it in the refrigerator for a long time as the nutritional content will decrease.”

Frozen foods may actually contain higher nutrient levels because they are typically processed closer to the harvest site, he said.

How to cook spinach most effectively

How you prepare your spinach is important.

“Cooking can affect the nutritional content of spinach,” says Roberts. Boiling can reduce the content of vitamins B and C and some phytochemicals. These compounds end up in cooking water, so “one way to recover it is to use that cooking water as a base for soups,” he said.

Popeye will be happy to know that spinach goes well with olive oil (the cartoon character’s lover is olive oil). Because vitamins K, A, and lutein require small amounts of fat to be absorbed by the body, Roberts recommends sauteing spinach in a little oil or eating it raw with a little oil. did.

5 brain-healthy nutrients that can delay or prevent dementia

Then there are smoothies. “This is actually how I eat spinach every day,” said Roberts, who eats about 1 cup of spinach every morning. Chopping spinach may actually increase the bioavailability of lutein and other compounds, he said.

“The important thing, of course, is to find a form of spinach that you enjoy, because all spinach provides some level of nutrition and benefits,” he said.