You Want Some Spinach With That?

You've probably heard this more times than you'd care to count. An important key to better health is eating five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables each day. But statistics show that people don't even come close to eating that recommended amount--causing them to miss out on a number of important nutrients.

Statistics show that at best, 32 percent of Americans eat four servings of fruits and veggies daily. Most people don't even eat four servings. And many of the servings people are eating come in the form of french fries.

There's no doubt about it, North Americans love their fast food. And as long as breakfast is a sausage biscuit and coffee, followed by a bacon triple cheeseburger and chili fries at lunch, it's not likely that we'll ever get all the nutrients we need.

But a couple months ago I saw a news item about a pair of University of Arkansas researchers who just love spinach. I know, thoughts of spinach bring to mind that mushy green stuff that got plopped on your tray in some school cafeteria long ago. Well, these researchers see spinach as emerald leafy goodness--a tasty way to get key nutrients such as vitamin C, vitamin A, and folic acid. And so they decided to see if they could pull a fast one on some fast-food lovers.

The researchers got the makings for hundreds of burgers from a local fast-food franchise, but substituted spinach for the iceberg lettuce on half of them. Then they conducted blind taste tests of both versions of the sandwiches. Without knowing what had been changed in the two versions, tasters answered questions about what they had tried. And the researchers found that the spinach version rated equally as tasty as the ones with lettuce. In fact, none of the tasters guessed that spinach had been substituted for the lettuce. Only a couple of the participants thought the lettuce seemed greener than usual.

From burgers, the researchers moved on to test products from sandwich shop and Mexican food franchises, again substituting spinach for iceberg lettuce where appropriate. The results were the same--tasters accepted the spinach as lettuce.

I know it's unlikely that we'll see spinach showing up in our fast food any time soon. But this study should have an effect on how you eat at home. Spinach for lettuce is a simple substitution when you think of it. Packing a brown-bag lunch for the office? Throw some spinach on your sandwich. Serving burritos to the kids one evening this week? Shred some spinach instead of lettuce. Apparently your tongue will never know the difference. And the rest of your body will be glad you've taken one more easy step to enjoying your five a day.