Clearing It Up For The Kids Sake

I have learned to tolerate spinach. My mother spent much of my youth thinking of different ways to cook it, after all, it was good for us kids. But as far as I was concerned, it was a dark green lump of mushy stuff, often sitting there on my plate, looking rather lonely. Later, I learned that it didn't have to be cooked, and could be respectable in a spinach salad.

But there apparently is more to the story, that moms need to know.

Everyone knows that spinach is loaded in iron and makes you stronger - Just look what it has done for Popeye's career. Well, Popeye was wrong. So were all of those parents that stuffed it down their kids' throats.

In reality, spinach has no more iron in it than any other vegetable. Even peas have three times more iron than spinach does.

This spinach misconception dates back to the 1950's when a food analyst made an error while calculating the iron in spinach. His decimal place was off by one place, suggesting that spinach had ten times as much iron content than it really did.

So Popeye, you were wrong. Kids, listen up... tell your moms that spinach is definitely overrated, and smoking isn't good for you either.

Contributed by Jamie Naessens