THE FOLKLORE OF PLANTS: Spinach

Lisa Karen Miller

“I’m strong to the finich ‘cause I eats me spinach.”

Popeye the Sailor Man

          I have long suspected that the football-forearmed Popeye was simply a shill invented by the spinach industry to get children to eat their green leafies. A misplaced decimal point is in fact to blame for the vegetable’s erroneous association with high amounts of iron and superhuman strength.

          In 1870, German chemist Erich von Wolf was in the process of researching spinach’s nutritional benefits. He accidentally placed the decimal point in the amount of iron one digit to the right, so 3.5 grams of iron became 35 grams. Because there was no other research to compare it with, his error was duplicated without question, and spinach’s mythical association with iron began.

          And mythical it certainly is. Neither A 21^st Century Herbal nor Desk Reference to Nature’s Medicine even lists spinach.

          Perpetuating into the Depression years, this error, largely accepted as fact, prompted Popeye creator E.C. Segar to make spinach the source of his great strength. Spinach growers subsequently credited Popeye with a 33% increase in sales in the 1930s, when the sales of most other commodities had dived considerably.

          So Popeye’s greatest feat was saving the spinach industry.

          Originating in the steppes of central Asia, spinach and other plants in the goosefoot family thrived in the hot dry climate of Afghanistan and Persia (Iran). After the sun evaporated the moisture from the soil, what was left was largely salt and alkali. Spinach contains a protoplasm that is naturally resistant to their influence. It can also withstand the mineral salts in artificial fertilizers. Prior to modern hybridization, the seed capsules had spikes to protect them from hungry animals.

          Purple Orach is often called Mountain Spinach.  Its leaves and young shoots can be used in salads raw.  The leaves can be cooked as spinach or added to soups, while the stems may be stir-fried. Native Americans used the salty leaves to flavor food, and ground the seeds into a flour.

          Ancient Persians cultivated aspinakh as a garden vegetable, adding it to meat broth with other greens to make a stew. In the 7^th century BCE, when Allah’s sons invaded Persia, they became fascinated with this plant, whose leaves were the same color as the flag of the prophet Mohammed. They recorded its use in treating coughs and chest ailments, but nowhere do they mention the blood or strength.

          Spinach makes us wonder just how much more of our collective conventional wisdom may rest on uncorrected errors.

© Copyright 2023 Lisa Karen Miller