Spinach or spinach is a familiar food, used frequently in Vietnamese daily dishes. Not only contains many essential nutrients for the body, but spinach also has many great uses for health. The following article will give you detailed information about spinach and 6 most common uses of spinach for health.
Table of Contents
Features of spinach
Spinach is a familiar vegetable in daily meals, grown in many parts of the world. However, not all housewives know the characteristics of this food below.
Biological characteristics
Spinach is also known as spinach, spinach or temple vegetables, is a type of plant in the Amaranth family. Spinach has the scientific name Selaginella Tamariscina Spring, while spinach scientific name is Spinacia oleracea L. Chenopodiaceae. Also in Oriental medicine, spinach is also known as Hoang Duong Thao, Linh Chi Thao …
This is a herbaceous plant, the trunk is 5 – 10cm high, easy to break, but easy to plant, easy to care for. The leaves are about the size of the propeller, dark green, the leaf stalks are small (depending on the planting site, the leaves may be larger or smaller). Many people often confuse spinach with some other herbaceous plants, but if you pay attention it will be easy to distinguish these vegetables.
Distribution and harvest characteristics
Spinach is native to the countries of Southwest Asia, grown popularly in many parts of the world. This vegetable is suitable for cool temperate climate, has good cold tolerance. In Vietnam, spinach is grown most in Da Lat and some northern mountainous provinces.
Spinach is grown in a bed like other vegetables, and can be harvested when the plant has 6-8 leaves or more. When the tree is mature, its leaves can be 10-18cm long. Spinach is easy to grow and take care of, and is often transported from Dalat to other provinces in the country.
Chemical composition of spinach
Spinach is a food that nutrition experts recommend on a regular basis to supplement nutrients and nutrients for the body. Because the nutritional composition of spinach is very diverse, including:
- Many vitamins and minerals: vitamin A, vitamin K, vitamin D, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin B2, vitamin B6 and Omega 3. Spinach has 60 times more vitamin K than duck eggs.
- Magnesium, Calcium, Iron, Manganese.
- The content of folic acid is 3 times higher than broccoli …
Spinach is low in sugar, low in calories and fat, so it’s good for human health. In addition, this vegetable is also used as a medicine to prevent and treat many diseases. That’s thanks to the important nutrients and plant compounds found in spinach or spinach.
6 uses of spinach for health and medicinal use
The great benefits of spinach bring health that you did not expect. Here are 6 of the most common uses for spinach.
Provide nutrients for the body
Spinach contains a lot of healthy nutrients, rich in vitamins, flavonoids, omega3 and folic acid. These are all essential nutrients for the body that people often lack due to in daily meals. Therefore, spinach has a very good effect for pregnant mothers in the early stages of pregnancy to supplement iron, to avoid adversely affecting the fetus. Spinach is also great for babies during weaning.
Using processed spinach into everyday dishes is the most natural way for you to supplement your nutrients. However, you should use a variety of healthy green vegetables instead.
Protect heart, lower blood pressure
Spinach has a high content of vitamin A and vitamin C so it protects the heart, prevents broken arteries, reduces the risk of heart failure. At the same time, the vitamin K content in spinach has the effect of reducing the sodium content in the body.
This is the main cause of high blood pressure. Therefore, patients with high blood pressure and those at risk of cardiovascular disease are advised to eat a variety of these vegetables.
You just need to process spinach into a dish that can provide cardiovascular protection and lower blood pressure. In addition, in Oriental medicine, there are also remedies to support heart failure, including: 250g of spinach, 150g of chrysanthemum leaf and 5g of licorice. Patients bring stars, puree and drink with cool boiled water.
Help strong bones, prevent osteoporosis
Calcium, magnesium, vitamin K in spinach help the bones develop healthy, stimulate the growth of bones. For young children, spinach helps to strengthen bones and increase height.
For the elderly, it works to prevent osteoporosis and other bone and joint diseases. In addition, in spinach also works to firm teeth, prevent root bleeding thanks to the content of vitamin C.
Protect eyes, enhance eyesight
Spinach contains many carotenoids, lutein works to protect the eyes, enhance eyesight. It also helps prevent and improve eye diseases such as dry eyes, corneal ulcers, cataracts, improve vision, treat macular degeneration, night blindness.
How to use: you only need to use 2-3 glasses of spinach juice / week to protect bright eyes. The remedy for yellow eyes and jaundice: use 30g of spinach boiled with 400ml of water, divided into 2 times a day.
Anti-inflammatory, prevent cancer
In spinach, there are high levels of carotenoids that are effective against free radicals that cause cancer, especially prostate cancer. At the same time, carotenoids also slow down the growth of tumors in the cervix, prevent breast cancer, ovarian cancer. Other nutrients in spinach have effective anti-inflammatory effects, helping to heal skin wounds.
Stimulates the digestive system
The fiber content in spinach is very good for the digestive system, stimulates the digestive system to work better, helps clean the intestines and treat constipation. Especially for young children, you should feed them spinach regularly to provide vitamins and minerals, limit constipation, indigestion.
Remedy for constipation, inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract: use 100g of spinach boiled with 3 bowls of water and a little salt until only 1 bowl of water is left. Adults drink 1 time at noon, and children divide it into 2 drinks morning and evening to laxative, clean the digestive system. Laxative effect, no constipation will be effective immediately, so you should avoid the time to go to work or busy work.
In addition to the above uses, spinach also helps limit obesity, prevent diabetes, enhance resistance, improve blood. Overall, this is a healthy food that should be consumed regularly in daily meals. The best preventive and therapeutic remedy is to process spinach into a dish to supplement nutrients, especially vitamins and minerals for the body.
Note when using spinach
Spinach contains oxalate and purines, not good for people with kidney disease, gout. Therefore, these patients should not eat too much but should replace with other green vegetables.
Housewives should not prepare spinach with seafood because it will lose some important nutrients in seafood such as zinc. Those who are taking the drug should also consider using spinach regularly because it can thin the blood, reducing the effectiveness of the drug.
Spinach can be processed into many delicious, healthy dishes. You can comfortably eat as often as a dish in daily meals for good health. This is also the best way for the body to absorb the nutrients in spinach, limit diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, atherosclerosis …
In addition, when preparing food, you should also pay attention to the dish that is both delicious and does not affect your health.
Note: The above remedies using spinach are for reference only, so consult your doctor before applying. In addition, you must also have a healthy, scientific diet and reasonable exercise and rest regimen to have good health and prevent disease.
Where can you find spinach?
As a popular food in Vietnamese rice tray, you can easily find spinach in markets, supermarkets, agricultural companies in the market. To ensure that your vegetables are clean, they do not contain chemicals or pesticides, you should buy them at a supermarket that is both safe and affordable. If you want to buy in bulk, you should contact reputable agricultural companies with quality assurance to buy at preferential prices.
Hopefully, with the information we provide will help you to understand more about the great benefits of spinach for health. Does your family love the dishes made from spinach? Please add this food to your family’s daily menu!
