10/21/2026
🥬💪🏼 THE SPINACH MYTH 💪🏼🥬
Story time: In the year 1870, a German chemist 🔬🤓 named Erich Von Wolfe 🐺 was doing his thing, researching iron levels in green vegetables. Von Wolfe calculated that spinach had 3.5 milligrams of iron per 100-gram serving, but upon transcribing his findings, he made a tiny-but-grave error. He misplaced the decimal point and recorded the iron level of spinach as 35 milligrams per 100-gram serving—ten times more iron than it really did.
That small misplaced decimal point set in motion a myth that endured for 70 years before being corrected. Perpetuated by Popeye the Sailor Man, that unlikely one-eyed hero of the cartoon screen, who famously tossed back cans of spinach and immediately gained superhuman strength. Legend has it that Popeye was so effective at encouraging Americans to eat their greens that spinach consumption rose by more than 30%.
But wait! The whole misplaced decimal story seems to ALSO be… a myth. 🤯
When researcher Ole Bjørn Rekdal tried to track down the factual details of the Von Wolfe story, he couldn’t. "Nothing indicates that the decimal point error ever was made, but the account about it will most likely live a long and colorful life, just like its parent myth, the belief that spinach is a good source of iron," wrote Rekdal.
In fact, spinach contains no more iron than other green vegetables and actually contains oxalic acid, which blocks the nutritional absorption of iron. But myths aside, Popeye or no Popeye, we love this delicious leafy green member of the amaranth (Amaranthaceae) family. With origins in ancient Persia, spinach has long been called "the prince of vegetables"🤴🏽 — and we don't disagree.
On THAT note... check out our spinach selection over at bit.ly/4eQjwd8 💪🏼🥬
