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Spinach is one of the healthiest (and versatile) greens you can eat
By Michael Miller · May 11, 2026
You don’t need a squinty-eyed sailor named Popeye to realize that spinach has nutritional value, but that nutrition doesn’t result in sudden strength.
Spinach is more subtly nutritious.
While a 30-gram serving of spinach does offer 4% of an adult’s daily nutritional requirement of iron, its early reputation as a source of power was the result of a misunderstanding of how much of it is absorbed by the body, which is much less than originally thought.
But spinach is still one of the healthiest greens you can eat.
VeryWellHealth.com says that spinach:
- Supports eye and vision health
- Protects your heart
- Reduces stress and inflammation
- May prevent cancer through its fiber and antioxidants
- Promotes gut health and digestion
- Protects your brain
- Helps with fitness and weight-loss goals
Spinach is versatile as well, since it can be used fresh in salads and other dishes, or in its canned form, which can be used in spinach pies, lasagna, or dips, although canned spinach is much higher in sodium.
Spinach is easy to grow
The leafy veggie is pretty easy to grow, too, and a very versatile crop. It’s hardy enough to be planted several weeks before the last frost of the spring and will also produce from a planting 6 to 8 weeks before the first frost in the fall.
One of the great things about spinach is that you can harvest outer leaves and the plant will continue to develop. Once it starts bolting (spiky growth with seeds), you can still trim off those last leaves. Don’t let the leaves get too large, though, or they’ll taste bitter.
A good practice after harvesting, according to Almanac.com, is to let spinach stay unwashed until you’re ready to use it.
But the most important thing is to use it, so here are some recipes.
Spinach recipes
And here are some for canned spinach:
- Fried Spinach
- Spinach and Chickpea Curry
- And, lest we forget about our favorite sailorman, Popeye’s Cheesy Spinach Dip