The Veg Letters #04

Spinach

I read somewhere recently that eating a cup of lightly cooked spinach a day can reduce your pre-diabetes levels. So I thought I’d buy some frozen spinach and write a Veg Letter about spinach. Then I couldn’t find that information anywhere, so wondered if I had dreamt it – I do really like spinach, so I could see my brain sending me subliminal messages that it’s especially good for me! I did find that it contains nitrates, which may help regulate blood sugar. That’ll do me, then. It’s full of goodness, anyway, and green leafy vegetables are always (right?) a good addition to any meal in my book, so I’m happy. Of course, I went and forgot to add the frozen spinach to the Ocado shop. Next week, then. And maybe they’ll have a bag of the fresh stuff in the Co-op.

Apparently, you get more nutrients from it if you cook it, just a little bit. Because cooking it destroys lots of the oxalate it contains and so helps you absorb the minerals better, and cooking also helps release folates and beta-carotene. I think, though, mixing it up and having some fresh spinach (especially if you are able to grow some and therefore eat it as soon as it’s been picked) and some cooked spinach.

I love spanakopita and have found a few ideas for making a vegan version – one involves tofu and another involves cashew nuts, and they both involve citrus juice and salt to give you that tang. I have a feeling that a bit of tamarind or yuzu might work well, too. I also really really love sag aloo and sag paneer. It seems that you can fairly easily make a vegan sag paneer using tofu (I can’t believe I used to dislike tofu in my earlier years – missed out on so very much!).

Paid subscribers get access to a beautifully illustrated spinach fact sheet.

It only costs £5 a month to subscribe and you would actually get access to all the other paid printables already published, even if you only subscribe for a month – or £50 for a year. Paid subscriptions, as well as giving me a warm glow and a huge grin on my face the whole day after I get the email from Stripe, help contribute to paying me for the time drawing and compiling all of these newsletters. They can take between half a day and two days, depending on the newsletter and how much I can reuse illustrations of vegetables I made earlier.

I still haven’t managed to work out the logistics of setting up a shop to sell physical versions of these printables (or reworked wall art versions). I will try really very extremely hard to get this set up by next year (I love this time of year when you can start promising things ‘by next year’).

And here’s the PDF version…

Veg Letters 04 Spinach

9.25MB ∙ PDF file

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I hope you enjoyed this month’s Veg Letter.