Fun Facts About Spinach!

1. Just half a cup of raw spinach counts as 1 of the 5 servings of fruits and vegetables you should eat a day.

2.Spinach is a member of the goose-foot family, which makes it a relative to beets and chard

3. In the 1930's U.S. spinach growers credited Popeye with a 33% increase in domestic spinach consumption.

4. The spinach growing town of Crystal City, Texas, erected a statue of Popeye in 1937.

5. Spinach leaves are a mild diuretic and mild laxative.

6. Medieval artists extracted green pigment from spinach to use as an ink or paint.

7. China is the world's largest spinach producer with 85% of global production.

8. Spinach is best eaten fresh. It loses nutritional properties with each passing day.

9. Oxalate, found in spinach, may cause kidney stones in some predisposed individuals.

10. California produces 74 percent of the fresh spinach grown in the United States.