As any Popeye fan knows, spinach makes you strong. It’s loaded with vitamins and minerals (including tons of iron!), making it a great addition to your diet—IF you’re cooking it right.
Just because your mom boiled spinach when you were a kid ~shudder~ that doesn’t mean that’s how you should eat it. Not only is that the slimiest and most boring way to eat the veggie (sorry, mom!), boiling spinach also sucks out lots of its good-for-you nutrients.
“Boiling vegetables can cause a loss in water-soluble vitamins,” says Samara Abbot, R.D., so you’re not going to get as much vitamin C and folate as you would if you’d just eaten a raw spinach salad.
However, there are downsides to going raw. “Raw spinach is not considered to be the best calcium source because it also contains oxalic acid, which prevents calcium absorption.” In other words: you get the vitamin C and folate, but not the calcium.
Thankfully, there are ways to eat the veggie without giving up taste or nutrition. Instead of boiling spinach, Jessica Cording, R.D., suggests steaming or microwaving it so you get more nutritional value in every bite. She likes to keep baby spinach on-hand to add into smoothies, soups, or omelets. She also likes doing a quick sauté with olive oil and onions, which you can eat as a side or add into an egg mixture to make mini frittatas.
One major downside of spinach: It goes bad really, really quickly in the fridge. Thankfully, frozen veggies like spinach have as much nutritional value as the fresh stuff, since they’re preserved right after harvest, says Abbot. Just follow the package instructions for thawing your spinach before you use it and you’re good to go.
