What happens to your body when you eat a handful of spinach every morning

Can a handful of raw spinach every morning “set the tone” for your day? Some people say that it helps them eat more green vegetables and prevents them from wanting sweet snacks later in the afternoon.

Do a handful of spinach offer enough nutrients?

Spinach is a vegetable rich in nutrients that contains antioxidants, folate, iron, calcium, fibers and vitamins A, C and K.

Adults need approximately two to three cups of vegetables every day to help support the immune system and a risk of lower chronic disease. Recent estimates indicate that only 10% of American adults eat enough vegetables.

But eating a handful of spinach will not solve this problem. You need two complete raw spinach cups to count like a portion of vegetables with a cup. This means that you need five cups of raw spinach to meet your daily vegetable needs.

“If [raw spinach] is the only thing people eat, then they lack many other vitamins and minerals that other fruits and vegetables will provide, “Dolores Woods, RDN, LD, dietitian recorded at Uthealth Houston, told Testwell.

Can eating raw spinach be part of a healthy morning routine?

Although eating a handful of raw spinach in the morning does not mean that you can cross “eating vegetables” from your list, it could help you prepare mentally, Woods said.

Research has shown that establishing a healthy routine can help people make positive lifestyle changes. Eating crude spinach straight out of the bag could work for some people, even if it is a placebo effect, said Theresa Gentile, MS, RDN, CDN, a recorded dietitian based in Brooklyn and a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Gentile explained that people who generally eat a diet rich in fat, with rich salt or rich in sugar could notice that their taste papillae gets used to less salt, sugar and fat if they start to eat more raw vegetables.

Raw spinach is not good for everyone

Crude spinach may not integrate into everyone’s healthy food plan. The spinach contains high quantities of oxalates, anti-nutrients that bind to calcium and other minerals of the body. Too many foods rich in oxalate can cause kidney stones for some people.

People subject to kidney stones or those who reach kidney disease may want to limit their contribution of raw spinach. But the advantages of spinach prevail over the risks for people who do not need to follow a low oxalate diet, Woods said.

The same goes for anyone who takes anticoagulants. Vitamin K plays a role in blood coagulation and could have an impact on the dose of their drugs.

What about cooked spinach?

If the raw spinach seems little appetizing, you can opt for cooked spinach. The heat can help break some of the oxalates into raw spinach.

If you are tired of eating spinach daily or you want more variety, you can try other green vegetables such as curly cabbage and arugula, or try to dip the raw peppers in the houmous.

“I would be happy if someone started the day with vegetables, but the variety will be the key,” said Gentile.