baby spinach

OUR RECOMMENDED TOP FOOD NO. 7 – SPINACH

Spinach

Your mother always told you to eat up your greens and with good reason too!

At Pete Fraser Fitness we recommend to our clients a moderate, varied and balanced diet.

Spinach is an excellent addition to any meal. It is easy wilted or steamed to add a high nutrient, low fat package of B vitamins, vitamin C and fibre.

Read more about spinach…

Spinach is not only packed with a range of B-vitamins but is high in fibre, low in fat and cholesterol and believe it or not, high in vitamin C – in fact a 100g serving size provides nearly 50% of the daily reference value for health.

Spinach can obviously be eaten raw which is desirable but when cooking, pay special attention to the following to maintain most of the micro-nutrients after cooking.

Cook very lightly, for example:

  • Wilt – quickly immerse in hot water for up to 60 sec
  • Microwave  for a couple of minutes
  • Steam: for a couple of minutes

One of the beauties of spinach is that although it has a relatively large volume in a raw state, cooking greatly decreases its volume so a large bag wilts down to a large spoonful – which means you can easily cook 3 times as much and enjoy triple the amount of nutrients!

Sport & Health

The B-complex vitamins are involved in the energy release from energy containing foods during aerobic exercise. They are also important co-factors or co-enzymes (facilitators) in metabolic reactions in the body. Vitamin C is an important chemical for various metabolic reactions in the body and plays a role in keeping the immune system healthy.

So Popeye was indeed correct – if you want to increase your muscular tone and general athleticism then eat your spinach!

So Popeye was indeed correct – if you want to increase your muscular tone and general athleticism then eat your spinach!

Nutritional background

Selected nutrient content for a small pre-washed bag of raw baby spinach (100g):

Energy: 23 kcal

Macro nutrient: protein 2.9g, carbs 3.6g, fat total: 0.4g, sat 0.1mg, mono 0.0g, poly unsat 0.2g

Micro nutrient (daily values): Vit A 188%, Vit C 47%,  Iron 15%, Vit E 10%, Vit K 604%, Riboflavin 11%, Folate 49%, Mag 20%, Pot 16%, Mag 45%, Dietary fibre 9%