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%