Most of us remember how Popeye’s muscles would always bulge after eating a mouthful of canned spinach. While the canned variety isn’t as nutritious as fresh spinach, Popeye was on to something. It’s super low in calories and overflowing with health benefits.
How Spinach Helps Your Health
Spinach is broccoli’s distant cousin, so they share many of the same health benefits, albeit from a slightly different group of nutrients. Benefits include improved eye and cardiovascular health, as well as the reduced risk of some cancers.
Your eyes will love you for eating this leafy superfood. Its beta-carotene, lutein and xanthenes work together to prevent cataracts, dry eyes and age-related macular degeneration.
Spinach is good for your heart health because it contains an impressive lineup of vitamins and minerals that promote a healthy ticker: vitamin C, folate, potassium and magnesium.
Because it contains the antioxidants glutathione and alpha lipoic acid, as well as a host of other polyphenols, spinach is a powerful cancer-fighter. Antioxidants round up and destroy your body’s free radicals (nasty chemicals that go around damaging your cells and causing cancer, among other things).
It’s also a great source of iron, which helps build oxygen-rich red blood cells. This boosts your energy and makes you feel stronger, because your body has the blood supply it needs.
Do They Even Make Spinach Supplements?
Absolutely! While spinach is a common food that’s available in supermarkets year-round, you can easily find it in supplement form. Like broccoli, spinach has a slightly bitter taste that you may not like.
While it can be easier and tastier to just eat it fresh, there are a number of supplements, such as Athletic Greens, that combine a wide variety of green superfoods—such as spinach, broccoli, wheatgrass, alfalfa, barley and more—into one easy powder. Save time and money by looking for combo-supplements like these.
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