National Spinach Day is March 26, which is a fantastic time to sow spinach in Michigan. Spinach is a cool season herb and is often a spring or fall crop.

How can you consume spinach? Fresh, frozen, added to stir-fry, rolled in pasta, simmered in soup, in a spinach-pie, quesadilla, blended in smoothies and numerous other approaches. Spinach has shown up in surprising approaches on the meals scene and can be enjoyed every single day. It is a far cry from the mushy, canned spinach that showed up on my dinner table from time to time when I was a kid!

National Spinach Day is March 26, which is a fantastic time to sow spinach in Michigan.  Spinach is a cool season herb and is often a spring or fall crop. Spinach is a single of the couple of garden crops that like some shade and cooler garden soil. The north side of a slope is ideal for spinach.

The consumption of spinach grew when the cartoon character Popeye the Sailor Man debuted in 1929. Elzie Crisler Segar designed this spinach-consuming muscle man. A 2010 study of kindergarteners performed in Ontario, Canada, identified kids ate a lot more vegetables, like spinach, immediately after watching Popeye. According to the study, which integrated tasting parties, “The spinach had to be combined with stories of giant muscle tissues and super-strength.”

Seeking for a lot more entertaining information about spinach? Michigan State University Extension delivers the following:

• Spinacia oleraceae is the Latin name for spinach.
• The word “spinach” is derived from the Persian word “ispanai” which indicates “green hand.‟ Later it became “spanachia‟ in late Latin and then “spinach” in English.
• Spinach’s origin is ancient Persia or today’s Iran and surrounding nations.
• Spinach is a cool season crop and belongs to the goose foot family members, along with Swiss chard and beets.
• Spinach is often grown from seed.
• Spinach seeds had been brought to the United States by early colonists.
• California, Arizona, New Jersey and Texas develop 98% of the fresh spinach in the U.S.
• Spinach ranks as a single of the most nutrient-dense of all foods with higher levels of beta-carotene (provitamin A), lutein, folate, vitamin C, calcium, iron, phosphorus and potassium.
• A three.five ounce serving of spinach has only 23 calories.
• Folate and vitamin C get slightly degraded when cooking spinach, but cooking gives larger levels of vitamin A and iron than when eaten raw.
• Crystal City, Texas, is the spinach capital of the planet. When most cities had been falling on difficult instances in the course of the Wonderful Depression, Crystal City had a booming spinach business, with thanks to the preferred cartoon character Popeye.
• Catherine de’ Medici became Queen of France in 1533. Queen Catherine was born in Florence, Italy. She was so fond of spinach she ate it at every single meal. Spinach became so preferred in France at that time that even currently lots of dishes produced with spinach as recognized as “Florentine.”
• Medieval artists extracted green pigment from spinach to use as an ink or paint.
• Spinach can neutralize explosives. The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory studyfound nitroreductase enzymes, naturally identified in spinach can consume, digest and transform explosives such as TNT.

To understand a lot more entertaining information, study this post from the University of Wisconsin Extension about spinach and fantastic increasing guidelines.

Want to share spinach with a young particular person in your life? Snack on some spinach and study “Sylvia’s Spinach.” This entertaining book, written by Katherine Pryor, is about young Sylvia and how she refuses to consume spinach. 1 day Sylvia’s teacher gave her a packet of spinach seeds to plant for the college garden and this young spinach hater quickly becomes a spinach lover.

Cover of “Sylvia’s Spinach.”

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