Everybody makes mistakes, but fortunately, the ramifications of most of our errors are minor. Not so with the mistake seen below, that transformed spinach in the minds of many into a super food.
The Widespread Belief That Spinach Is a Super Food
Popeye the Sailor Man made many children fantasize about a shortcut to super powers. They just had to overcome their abhorrence of spinach, and chow it down. Popeye’s love of spinach was popularized to a receptive public that was already primed by a widespread belief that spinach was an extraordinarily beneficial food item. Sadly, it did not work for kids who mastered their gag reflexes long enough to swallow the green stuff. None were rewarded by an explosive increase in strength, prowess, or other abilities and talents.
It was not all bad, however, and there was at least a silver lining to the disappointment. Kids learned one of life’s early lessons: don’t believe everything you see on TV. Even among adults who don’t believe that spinach will give them super strength, there is a widespread belief that it is a good source of iron, and a great way to raise one’s blood iron levels without eating meat. Unfortunately, even that is misguided, as spinach does not have much more iron than other leafy greens like broccoli. It actually has less iron than others like brussels sprouts.
The Math Mistake That Made Spinach a Super Food
Popeye’s passion for spinach, as well as the popular faith in its exceptional qualities, was caused by a math mistake. In 1870, German scientist Erich von Wolf was conducting research into the amount of iron that was contained in Spinach and other vegetables, and he screwed up when he wrote down his numbers. He discovered that spinach had an iron content of 3.35 milligrams per 100 grams serving. However, when he wrote up his findings, he misplaced a decimal point.
Von Wolf jotted down spinach’s iron content as ten times greater than what it actually was: 33.5 milligrams of iron per 100 grams, instead of 3.35. Nobody double checked the math and noticed the mistake until 1937. By then, Popeye had made his first appearance in a comic strip in 1929, and the first Popeye the Sailor cartoon short had been released in 1933. The spinach-loving sailor was a cultural icon, and the spinach super food myth had already taken hold by the time von Wolf’s mistake was discovered.
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Some Sources & Further Reading
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