interesting trivia about spinach
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on is tired of being the 98-pound weakling, and he thinks he has the answer to his problem. As usual, Yaël has to set him straight.
Y: Hey Don, what's with all the spinach?
D: It's embarrassing, but when I go to the beach big, muscular guys kick sand in my face. I'm tired of being a ninety-pound weakling. Finally, I'm gonna bulk up and be a real man!
Y: Ok, but what does that have to do with spinach?
D: Geez Yael, haven't you ever heard of Popeye the Sailorman? Whenever he's getting beaten up he eats some spinach and becomes really strong. His muscles bulge out and everything.
Y: I hate to burst your bubble, Don, but eating spinach has nothing to do with strength.
D: Popeye is a lie?
Y: Not a lie, exactly. See, some time in the 1920s it was reported that a half cup of cooked spinach has thirty-four milligrams of iron, which is a lot. Iron is important because it carries oxygen in the blood. We need oxygen for energy; without enough of it people become weak and tired.
D: So spinach does make you stronger, or at least puts extra pep in your step.
Y: Well, it might, if it really did have that much iron. It turns out that the thirty-four milligrams was a typo. A half cup of cooked spinach really has only three point four milligrams of iron. Plus, spinach is actually worse than other iron-containing vegetables because it has a chemical that blocks most of its iron from being absorbed by the blood. But when the typo was published the idea caught on that spinach was a muscle-building vegetable. That's where the idea for Popeye came from.
Great for Kids
