Would you gain weight if you ate an entire car full of spinach?
My oldest son, Cade, 20 years old, came over to chat for a while and tell me about his luck with the ladies, a few days ago. We were shooting the breeze and had this completely pointless conversation, related to whether or not he has gained weight, since moving out into his first apartment away from home:
Me: I’m not saying you’re fat! I’m saying you’ve filled out a little.
Cade: I weigh the same as I did when I lived here. In fact, I think all the vegetables and green stuff you made me eat probably made me fatter.
Me: Not possible. Raw veggies CAN’T make you fatter.
Cade: Of course they can!
Me: No, they can’t. Seriously. If you ate greens from the minute you woke up till the minute you went to bed, you would LOSE weight.
Cade: Give me a break, Mom. That isn’t true. If you ate lots of big bowls full, you would get fat.
Me: No. If you ate your entire CAR full of spinach, every day, you would actually lose weight. It has basically no calories, and no fat, but greens have tons of vitamins and minerals and stuff.
Cade: [laughing like I am totally ridiculous]
Me: Here, let’s Google it.
I Googled “how many calories does spinach have?” On the screen, what popped up was this:
A serving is a cereal bowl full of spinach, and it has–wait for it—SEVEN CALORIES.
Me: Yeah. See? How many servings do you think you could eat in a day? If you ate all day long.
Cade: Oh, like a hundred?
Me: Ooh, burn! That’s 700 calories. You would lose a ton of weight!
He laughed and let me win. (I have let him win many times. Especially when the subject is sports!)
That’s nutrient density. The only foods you can eat in unlimited quantities, with ZERO fear of one single bad thing happening to you—the nutrient dense foods. Low calorie, high micronutrients. Guess what else they’ve got? Tons of fiber, high vibrational frequency, and quite a bit of protein!
Greens and vegetables and sprouts top the list of nutrient-dense foods. Put them on your plate with RECKLESS ABANDON!
Posted in: Healthy Weight, Relationships, Whole Food
I’m sure this is on here somewhere, but please point me to it: OK< I want to eat a TON of spinach, but how can I make it more exciting/palatable/delicious?
@Kevin, what I do is to often mix greens (spinach, kale, etc.) into something else to get different tastes. You could mix spinach into an omelette (I like making some scrambled eggs and mixing chopped-up spinach into it with a little black pepper and turmeric), or add spinach into a sauce or a soup. The green smoothies are always a good way to eat a ton of spinach and not even notice it. Add some fruit and stevia and you’ve got a great drink right there.
I also like a spinach salad; you could toss some spinach with balsamic vinaigrette, feta cheese, and olives, etc.
I tend to like using spinach as a base, then slicing up apples on top, adding walnuts and cranberries, and adding a little bit of organic chicken salad. It makes a yummy-tasting lunch or even a dinner.
We made kale “chips” once, by laying out pieces of kale onto a baking pan, sprinkling some extra virgin olive oil on top, and then a dab of sea salt and sticking them into the oven until they crispened. They were delicious…wonder if it would work with spinach as well??
That’s just some starter ideas, of course….but I hope it helps! Try Googling “healthy meals with spinach” or something along those lines.
But I have found that drinking the green smoothies with spinach has really forced me to eat a lot of spinach effortlessly, which I like because it’s been a simple–but very helpful–change. I don’t even notice I’m doing it and it’s just become a habit that way, even though I’m somewhat new to this green smoothie thing.
Smoothies.
Turn it into a salad. I think the best salads have a little bit of fruit in it. Think: spinach salad with strawberries and walnuts, and a dressing with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. YUMM!
Add it to other dishes.
Robyn has several recipe books that have great ways to prepare greens as an entre and ways to incorporate greens into other meals (even in mashed potatoes!).