WARM SPINACH: a bad idea?
Well, when I was younger, we always said, “you may not warm up spinach because then it is poisonous” so I tipped out the surplus.
A few years ago, we had a very hard time and I wiped my hole on it. I warmed it up the next day so we could eat another day. And you know what I'm still alive.
Now I read this week in the magazine of Test Purchasing an article that gave a completely different view on warming up and I would like to share that with you.
In our leafy vegetable there are nitrates that are not harmful to humans, but when you warm up the vegetable, bacteria convert it into nitrites. These are substances that can lead to the formation of nitrosamines in the body in large quantities. These can cause cancer, but no study has yet been done to investigate this thoroughly.
Even the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) assessed the risks of nitrates in food and found that the benefits of the vegetables exceed the potential risks.