Ms. Maven’s (Occasional) Monday Market Musings – Spinach

Fairly regularly, my mother served spinach at our dinner table. Through the early years of my life I could barely tolerate the sight of it. I thought my older siblings were ingesting something totally gross.

Perhaps when I was about ten, perhaps on a dare, I survived putting a speck of spinach in my mouth. Bit by bit, forkful by forkful, by the time I was in my mid-teens, this shredded green, which came out of its box in a frozen block, had become a favorite vegetable.

I discovered fresh spinach once I was out on my own and doing my own food-shopping. And one day, when I was in my mid-thirties, I found “baby spinach” in the vegetable section of Whole Foods. It wasn’t until I was home that I realized I’d paid over $10 for a pound and a half of these little flat leaves.

The only drawback to fresh spinach (in addition to the cost of the loose baby spinach) is the washing of the leaves. For regular spinach, it’s just a messy job, cleaning out all residue of sand or dirt from the cracks and crevices of the jumbo leaves. For baby spinach, washing seems a waste of time as the tender leaves most often appear clean – perhaps they are prewashed. And the home washing is a risk to the delicate leaves, which stick to each other and can easily tear.Last week I found a great baby spinach product. Noreast Fresh has a 9 oz. bag of baby spinach that has been cold-water washed and is microwaveable – right in the purchase bag!  There are three servings in the bag – which at Market Basket was about $3.69 – and each serving provides:
110% Vitamin A
  40% Vitamin C
  40% Folate
  15% Iron
  15% Magnesium
    8% Calcium

In addition to great taste…. 

And that’s what keeps Popeye and me hepped up over spinach!