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Spinach hardly qualifies as edible. It has essentially no nutritional value, and is poisonous/anti-nutritious due to its oxalic acid content. Most leaves are t
by wyager 4y ago
Spinach hardly qualifies as edible. It has essentially no nutritional value, and is poisonous/anti-nutritious due to its oxalic acid content.
Most leaves are this way. The plant doesn't use them for energy storage, doesn't want animals to eat them as part of its reproductive strategy, and actively benefits from discouraging animals from doing so.
- hombre_fatal 4y agoWe are regularly wrong when we try to come up with first principles when trying to make assumptions about nutrition. Even "lectins must always be bad" turns out to be wrong. You don't necessarily complete the circle here, granted, but I've heard it claimed many times lately by Twitter carnivore-diet influencers that plants must be bad for you because they don't have claws/teeth thus they depend on chemical deterrents. It's a very arbitrary attempt at a first principle, not the least of which because it seems to suggest that we are incapable of even the most basic nutrition science.
- citizenpaul 4y agoSpinach is by a huge margin the most dense source of magnesium. Magnesium is needed for muscle growth and rebuilding. Its one of a number of nutrients that is usually under provided in supplements because it makes the pills too big and people don't like large vitamins. You'll see things like 10000% of vitamin A but the multivitamin will have like 5% for magnesium.