Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Spinach Is NOT A Health Food
107 Plays1 year ago
Do you need help with your health? Would you like to increase your longevity while addressing existing health issues?
Request your FREE Metabolic Function Assessment session with me here: https://www.livelongerformula.com/
During this 45-minute consultation we’ll take a deep dive into critical areas of your metabolism and understand what is out of balance.
From gut health and hormone function to adrenal health and blood sugar regulation, even a small imbalance in any of these (or other) areas can lead to poor health in the future and diminished longevity…but the sad fact is that a large majority of people over 40 have multiple imbalances in multiple areas of their metabolism…
The key is to identify and address these swiftly, so that you can thrive for decades to come without worrying that “something’s brewing under the surface.”
Request your Metabolic Function Assessment session here and let's get you thriving for decades to come: https://www.livelongerformula.com/
---
Check out the first volume in the How to Actually Live Longer series on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4dDXjxc
The Live Longer Formula is your go-to podcast for cutting through the noise and discovering practical, science-backed strategies to not just add years to your life, but to add life to your years. Hosted by longevity author and functional health practitioner Christian Yordanov, this podcast dives deep into the truths (and myths) behind longevity, health optimization, and addressing chronic health problems.
Each episode offers actionable insights drawn from the host's own research, clinical practice, and personal journey, helping you make informed decisions to restore and enhance your health. Whether you're interested in reducing stress, boosting your energy and mental performance, improving your gut health, or simply looking to optimize your diet and lifestyle, this podcast delivers the tools you need to live a healthier, longer life.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Host Background
00:00:45
chrisyzen
Hi, Christian Jordonov here.
Why Not Spinach?
00:00:48
chrisyzen
Today I'm going to talk to you about why I do not recommend spinach. And I don't think it's a health food and I don't eat it at all and my my family doesn't eat it. And i ah obviously clients that come to me eat, that do eat it, especially in fairly high quantities.
00:01:05
chrisyzen
I do my best to dissuade them from doing that. And the biggest reason is because of the oxalate content, just to kind of make ah get cut right to the chase. So oxalates are organic acids, they're organic compounds found in spinach, other leafy greens, and a lot of other foods. but the problem is in spinach they're much much higher than most other foods right so you have one um cup of or not even weight so 100 grams of spinach has 755 milligrams per cup so three quarters of a gram of oxalates and that's cooked right and then sweet potatoes which are actually fairly high on on in oxalate content they will only have 140
00:01:56
chrisyzen
milligrams per cup right ah what else let me see so baked potatoes with the skin is only 16 milligrams per hundred in oxalates so you can see baked potatoes and carrots they have 10 milligrams per hundred grams nuts will have 100 to 470 milligrams dark chocolate dark chocolate is 117 milligrams per hundred but spinach is 750 milligrams per right oxalates one of the biggest sort of things they do is they bind with minerals so calcium magnesium zinc at and a few others as well I think
Hidden Dangers of Spinach
00:02:41
chrisyzen
And the problem with that is they that when they bind with minerals, they form crystals, oxalate crystals. You can Google it and look at some pictures of oxalate crystals. they're jagged They have jagged the edges. They almost look like diamonds kind of thing. And these can get embedded in our tissues. So they can actually damage our tissues.
00:03:03
chrisyzen
and not only that but they when they bind with minerals in the digestive tract they can make them uh un-bioavailable right so it can basically reduce the minerals we're getting and we're already not getting enough minerals uh in general and then for many people kidney stones are are mostly calcium oxalate so they can oxalates can contribute to kidney stones and and a lot of other pathologies you know when i was researching and writing my book on autism apparently there was one doc i went to a workshop
00:03:42
chrisyzen
in Spain and um he's very famous in in those kind of circles and he was talking about children with eye poking behaviors like a lot of pain in the eyes so self-injurious behavior were kind of very high in oxalates so these these compounds can get embedded in our tissues and stuff and the dude that actually ah he started one of the labs that that I use Mosaic it used to be called Great Plains lab and he he used to work for the CDC and stuff like that very kind of high-level mind and I heard him on podcast talk about how he thinks that actually oxalates could could play a ah ah much bigger role in atherosclerosis heart disease than um than cholesterol and all this kind of other nonsense right so these things can
00:04:27
chrisyzen
because of their structure when they become crystals they can be damaging to our blood vessels gut lining and stuff like that but here's the problem generally if your gut is in good shape these oxalate crystals if they get formed in the gut yeah okay great uh not obviously not great uh okay it sucks that they make our minerals not bioavailable so we don't get the minerals but at least we can poop them out the problem is if your gut is in rough shape you're inflamed you have dysbiosis or you're stressed because when you get stressed that increases the leaky gut or the intestinal permeability so I wouldn't be adding things like that that have potential risks and very little upside and I'll explain why they have little upside so oxalates is a big one and ah ah spinach is an oxalate bomb compared to other foods then we have nitrates
00:05:20
chrisyzen
um which can be converted to nitrosamines in the body, then we have phytic acid.
Trade-offs: Cooking vs. Nutrients
00:05:28
chrisyzen
So I asked Chad GPT what toxins and anti-nutrients are found in spinach and with its ridiculous sort reply it says spinach is highly nutritious, of course it has to say this sort of nonsense,
00:05:41
chrisyzen
But like many leafy greens, it contains certain compounds that can be considered toxins or anti-nutrients under specific conditions or in excessive amounts. Here are some of the most notable ones. Some. So oxalates, nitrates, phytic acid.
00:05:58
chrisyzen
or phytate, that's another one that's fairly well known in health circles, found in a lot of plant-based foods. And it can also bind with minerals like iron, zinc, calcium, again reducing their bioavailability and potentially leading to mineral deficiencies if consumed in large quantities.
00:06:16
chrisyzen
oats Oats are another um ah very rich in phytic acid food, right? Keep that in mind. If if you ever get the the question in your head, does Christian recommend oats for breakfast? Hell no. Hell no. Supponents. Supponents are a class of compounds that have soap-like properties and are present in spinach. Supponents can have a bitter taste and may reduce the absorption of certain nutrients
00:06:47
chrisyzen
Although they may also have some potential health benefits such as cholesterol lowering effects. I want to punch you in the face chat GPT. There's nothing healthy about lowering your cholesterol. If your cholesterol is at a healthy level, lowering it is it detrimental. If your cholesterol is low already, you don't want to lower it further. um And it's probably a health issue. And your if your cholesterol is high or very high,
00:07:20
chrisyzen
It's probably a health issue that needs to be addressed. You don't want to just muscle down the marker on a freaking lab test. Okay. So anytime you hear so something in lower cholesterol, oftentimes it's it's due to a, uh, some kind of detrimental effect. It's exerting on the body. Then goitrogens, no spinach contains goitrogenic compounds. And I'm sure most people have heard of goiter. So that's kind of these massive lumps of mass around the thyroid.
00:07:50
chrisyzen
ah So, goitrogens can interfere with thyroid function by inhibiting the uptake of iodine. And a big um the biggest, goal the most goitrogenic foods are cruciferous vegetables, so your broccolis and cauliflowers and your Brussels sprouts and cabbages and stuff that we basically have stopped eating as well in our family over the last while. And obviously,
00:08:17
chrisyzen
the goitrogens especially if you have a thyroid disorder they can exacerbate the condition but also if you look at how prevalent hypothyroid is hypothyroidism is now um could it be could it be all these plant foods and other obviously there's a lot of other chemicals in the environment that are ah hormonal disruptors but the All of these foods that are purported to be healthy, people are trying to eat them, and yet the disease statistics keep climbing higher and higher. Then we have tannins. These are polyphenols that can affect the taste and nutritional content of spinach.
00:09:00
chrisyzen
Tannins can inhibit the absorp of absorption of iron and other minerals potentially leading to deficiencies if consumed in large amounts. I should add that things that block the absorption of iron probably, if if it was just iron, probably not a bad thing.
00:09:17
chrisyzen
because most, ah at least in the West that is, most people ah would ah carry a higher risk of being iron toxic or iron overloaded than iron deficient.
Environmental Impact on Spinach
00:09:30
chrisyzen
So the problem is that ah these polyphenols they also absorb or rather, sorry, not absorb, they inhibit the absorption of zinc and other minerals so it's not just iron so it's not good that's not a good thing then yeah you know another thing is that um these plants they can accumulate toxic metals because they just uptake stuff from from around them so if there's toxic metals in the soil they're going to to uptake a subset of that right so
00:10:06
chrisyzen
Obviously, I'm sure people listening to the podcast would be getting their vegetables and and and plant foods organic, ideally. But um that's just it's it's good good to remember, right? It's good to remember. And then ChatGPT says, of course, it always gives its own stupid little know things that I didn't ask.
00:10:29
chrisyzen
um so mitigating factors cooking spinach can reduce the levels of oxalates, goitrogens and some other anti-nutrients making them less of a concern and here's the thing if you cook the spinach you may make the minerals a little bit more bioavailable because if you're just eating it raw, you're not really getting that magnesium and that calcium. And by the way, the calcium in spinach its own has a bioavailability of only 5%, 5%. So anyone that tells you, oh, spinach is a good source of calcium, they they are incorrect, unfortunately.
00:11:10
chrisyzen
But here's the other thing, if you cook the spinach, yeah you reduce some of these oxalates, goitrogens and other anti-nutrients. However, you also then destroy the water are soluble vitamins. So someone that tells you, yeah i eat it I eat it for the folate content.
00:11:26
chrisyzen
But then if you cook it, you're kind of destroying a lot of that folate. So that's that's ah like I keep kind of saying and I talk about in my book how to actually live longer volume on that. That's the problem with a lot of these plants with you. You can let let's say nuts, right? You can.
00:11:45
chrisyzen
roast your almonds or get get your almonds roasted and that may inactivate some of the anti nutrients in them but the problem is because they haveffs they have such a high polyunsaturated fat content is that you're oxidizing the polyunsaturated fats you're damaging them and they those damaged ah pieces of polyunsaturated fatty acids are Up to and including carcinogenic mutagenic DNA damaging ah Just very toxic to ourselves very damaging right so That's kind of the the double double-edged sword is that is that a term are people using that term nowadays? I don't know um It's it's a double whammy So damned if you do damned if you don't that's why I stick to mostly animal foods
00:12:40
chrisyzen
right with and the right
Rethinking Spinach's Nutritional Claims
00:12:42
chrisyzen
the right there is the right plant foods that we can eat that they have less of these toxins of course but spinach is not one of them now just to play devil's advocate i asked because um chat gbt said spinach is highly nutritious thank you chat gbt you're not biased so i asked it so but why is spinach nutritious and they tell i told me spinach is nutritious spinach is considered highly nutritious due to its rich content of vitamins minerals and other beneficial compounds beneficial compounds
00:13:19
chrisyzen
Here's a breakdown of why spinach is such a valuable addition to a healthy diet. High in vitamins. Spinach is one of the best sources of vitamin K. Okay, it's K1 though. it's not It's not the optimal form of vitamin K. So the K2 found in things like cheese, dairy is a hell of a lot better. So ah not really.
00:13:41
chrisyzen
vitamin A and then as beta-carotene so it in in um parentheses that's the thing vitamin A is not beta-carotene and I've been in the plant-based world and I know how they they brainwash each other that you know you just you get better carotene and then you you convert it and that everything is dandy right but that's the thing I you know personally I've done genetic testing and I have polymorphisms in those genes that make that conversion very inefficient, right? The better carotene to spinach. So, to better carotene to vitamin A. So, you know, it's, is is it better? yeah It's like, let's say you want, you want to buy a shelf, shelving unit for your, for your living room. Would you prefer
00:14:32
chrisyzen
for me to bring a flat packed box with like here crap that you have to put yourself together or would you rather us deliver in with the truck a nice shelf that's already put together and I think most people are like well it's a little bit more convenient to get the the shelf ah already assembled and delivered and stuff like that instead of me having to like labor over this thing and and put it myself together so it the all of these conversions they're inefficient they um they require energy and potentially other nutrients so
00:15:07
chrisyzen
Why would we want to put that burden on the body if you can if you can um just eat the the foods that are the most nutritious, the most biological value for the least amount of let's say a a requirement for digestion, right? Ideally, you want something to be as easily digestible as possible.
00:15:29
chrisyzen
and the most nutrition not the other way around that that's the problem with a lot of these plant foods they say they have a lot of phytochemicals who gives a shit we don't even know what these phytochemicals are doing for the most part yes there is some there are some phytochemicals that are beneficial but they're probably way way more that are detrimental that we don't even know about we already know what about a lot of them think about it this way ah of of the I don't know hundreds of thousands of different plant species on earth all around us. How many of those are edible? Like a hundred?
00:16:13
chrisyzen
that we have to hybridize the shit out of two to to make less and less toxic. Think about spinach is leaves. Can you go out to your garden or out in the woods? Which leaves of which plants would you be able to eat raw, especially raw?
00:16:30
chrisyzen
like most of those will make you pretty sick so we've hybridized some of these things down to to more manageable levels of toxins but i think you can't it you can't ever go all the way i don't think then okay it has vitamin c sure folate but if you cook it you're gonna destroy the folate or at least a lot of it then it says rich in minerals now here's the thing iron first of all you don't want your food to be too rich in minerals ah in iron I mean it's specifically you don't want your food to be too rich in iron but that one is first on the list but it's kind of ridiculous it's it's I think it's like two milligrams per hundred grams it's ridiculous right of the iron content and then even Chad GPT says
00:17:19
chrisyzen
However, the iron in spinach is non-heme, which is less readily absorbed by the body compared to heme iron from animal sources. So
Animal vs. Plant Nutrients
00:17:26
chrisyzen
all this big hoopla ah spinach is rich in iron, and then, oh, but it's not really bioavailable. And it's it's actually a very low amount per 100 grams. So that's that's kind of a non-starter. Then calcium. Spinach contains calcium, which is vital for bone health, muscle function, and nerve signaling.
00:17:44
chrisyzen
however As mentioned earlier, the presence of oxalates can reduce calcium absorption. That's according to Chad GPT, right? You don't even have to take my word for it. Magnesium, and then we already discussed why the magnesium is not bioavailable unless you cook the bejesus out of this thing. And then potassium, but then everything has potassium, including meat.
00:18:07
chrisyzen
milk, fruit, very rich in potassium. So you're going to get that anyway. And then antioxidants. So it has quercetin, lutein and zeaxanthin and camphorol. And look, I, I will probably
00:18:26
chrisyzen
have to like lutein and zeaxanthin i think they're they're they're good i'm kind of still on the fence about corsetin i used to take it more i think it's been hyped up a lot and anytime something gets hyped type hyped up a lot like curcumin or resveratrol and you know this the stuff you're like oh okay something something is not right here so corsetin i haven't had really the time to dig into it fully But the lutein and zeaxanthin are like, but here's the thing. So these are good for eye health, as some listeners may know. But there are things that are good for eye health that are
00:19:07
chrisyzen
Molecules that the body already recognizes and is part of its own metabolism So why don't we supplement the things that are? Because here's the thing a lot of these the reason a lot of these quote-unquote phytochemicals are Bioactive right is because they resemble our own molecules, right? Sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad way. For example, isoflavones in soy.
00:19:38
chrisyzen
are estrogenic they kind of have their structure basically can mimic the and interact with the receptor the estrogen receptors but just like that we have we also have phytoprogestogens that have more ah more beneficial effect and then some of these uh flavones and stuff flavonoids and carotenoids they they have certain properties that they are they can either mimic um certain molecules in the body or they may be able to like participate in oxidation reduction reaction so they can like ah accept electrons as an anti or give electrons as an antioxidant accept electrons and that that can actually help in certain situations but I always go back to this if you
00:20:35
chrisyzen
need a hammer for the job, and that's the thing you're most used to. A rock will do the job, right? A lot of things can can act as a hammer, but the best tool for the job is a hammer. So I i want to help you um make your hammer pipeline in your in your um in your body very efficient. So anytime you need a hammer,
00:21:02
chrisyzen
for the job, you're going to have your own ah bioidentical endogenously produced hammer. right so the i Like I said before, I'm not really good with the analogy, so I'm still learning how to do that. But the point is,
The Role of Essential Nutrients
00:21:16
chrisyzen
we have our own antioxidant system in the body right with enzyme-based and protein-based antioxidants.
00:21:24
chrisyzen
We don't really need these antioxidants from the plants if our own systems are working well, supported by protein, amino acids, um vitamins and minerals. And then so that's one thing. And then you would probably need it less if we did things that reduce the oxidation and the kind of these sort of detrimental process. That's another thing.
00:21:48
chrisyzen
And then also keep in mind that a lot of ah lot of these plant compounds, they're called antioxidants, which is a misnomer because they're actually pro-oxidants, which means they they exert this hormetic effect where they damage cause damage. They're kind of almost like ah a little bit of poison.
00:22:06
chrisyzen
that causes us to upregulate our own detoxification enzymes. And I keep telling people, so let's say let's say you eat cabbage or cruciferous vegetables because this they upregulate phase two detoxification enzymes in the liver. Let's say you do that. You do a genetic test and then your phase two detoxification enzymes, you have some polymorphisms and like I actually do, i actually I even have some, a couple of genes are completely missing for the phase two detoxification.
00:22:36
chrisyzen
and they tell you on the auto-generated reports for these things you know cruciferous vegetables and whatever else maybe resveratrol and then what are those things doing they're up regulating the expression of those enzymes for detoxification but what's better to do what's better to do is to understand that we are already our detoxification systems are generally fairly up-regulated because we're constantly being exposed to toxins. So all we need to do, we don't need to stimulate them further, we need to give them the building blocks. And just as an example, ah for detoxification, you what do you need the most? You need energy, you need B vitamins, and then you need various amino acids, you need protein, okay?
00:23:22
chrisyzen
So that's a much better strategy for detoxification and stuff like that and supporting antioxidant production, endogenous antioxidant production in the body than getting your antioxidants quote unquote from plant foods. And then ah apparently a benefit is that it's low in calories. Yeah, sure. if If you have a weight issue, that's one thing, but here's the thing.
00:23:47
chrisyzen
eating spinach, 200 grams of spinach, that displaces 200 grams of a much more nutritious food that you could be eating. You have a limited capacity in your stomach and a limited capacity to eat food. So if you're very busy, it it may be convenient to start the day off with a smoothie, you can take it with you, but I would personally rather spend, you know, the way the the way I do it, like sometimes I wake up,
00:24:16
chrisyzen
the frost start get the meat defrosting on the warm water you know just dunk it in warm water and then i'm able to to cook it quickly just fry it up a little bit gently with some butter and that's a good source of meat and then you just need to balance it with a little bit of carbohydrate because it already already has fat in it And you've got a very much more nutritious meal in terms of amino acids, saturated fat, ah which will have some fat soluble vitamins. or There's a ton of B vitamins because muscle meat has a lot of mitochondria. Mitochondria have a bunch of B vitamins, coenzyme Q10, a bit of copper, zinc, yeah iron, not not a great thing, not not that it's a good thing to have a lot of iron, but it has a lot of different compounds already like and hundreds of other things that that we
00:25:06
chrisyzen
that are but bioidentical to things we use in our mitochondria, in our cells. Whereas the cells of plants, not only is there a lot of fibrous tissue that's indigestible surrounding them, but also the their whole biochemistry is different, so it's not compatible with human biochemistry. So a lot of the stuff in the plant matter is not super suitable for us, even like the protein content, the amino acid ratios are are just not as compatible.
00:25:36
chrisyzen
and then the whole there's a whole issue with fiber how it can feed the wrong bacteria whole separate episode there but you know these um these um benefits of spinach are ridiculous so high in fiber that's on that's not a good thing really you don't need you know you don't need more fiber most people don't that's not the problem even if you have got issues hydration spinach has a high water content really is that a benefit Really it's spinach gonna make or break me in terms of my hydration status and then protein while not a listen to this While not a complete protein spinach provides a modest amount of plant-based protein, which is important for muscle repair immune function and overall health
00:26:20
chrisyzen
It's like two, three grams per hundred. Like, come on. And the biological value of plant proteins is nothing. Can't hold a candle to animal foods. So you're not even going to absorb all of that. And then it's not even a complete protein. And then phytochemicals is a benefit. OK, sure. OK, Chad GPT. So in the conclusion, Chad GPT comes up with his Spinach is a nutritional powerhouse.
00:26:50
chrisyzen
offering a wide range of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and fiber. Its low calorie content combined with high nutrient nutrient density makes it a highly beneficial. It really grinds my gears, man.
00:27:05
chrisyzen
so i hope I hope that kind of summarizes. It's really the oxalate content and the relatively low actual bioavailable nutrition content.
Meeting Nutritional Needs
00:27:20
chrisyzen
Those are the two main ones and the fact that it displaces more nutrient dense food you could be eating because think about it like 200 grams of spinach, a couple hundred grams of broccoli, um whatever else. You got a pound of food already that's mostly water.
00:27:37
chrisyzen
So the it can become difficult because here's the thing. If you look at most people that actually start tracking their RDAs and in like ah in a food app, food tracking app, most people don't even reach their ah RDAs and the ah RDAs are just ridiculously preposterous in terms of they've got nothing to do with your optimal health. So most people can't meet the ah RDAs for many things, vitamins and minerals.
00:28:07
chrisyzen
So, yeah and remember the goal is not to meet the RDA's, you have to exceed them. Some things you might need 4x the amount of that they say, let's say, be a certain B vitamin or something like that. You might need four times that amount. You don't know, especially if you're you're very if your lifestyle or your job is stressful.
00:28:26
chrisyzen
that that stress causes certain cascades where you waste, you excrete certain things, right? what you You have magnesium loss and um sodium and so so so there's certain things that get used up more when you're in a stress state, right? So you have to go over and above with your nutrition. So every meal is an opportunity to add a lot of nutritional density, right? So I'm not looking how to make the meal more bulky. If I'm having meat, let's say I'm going to be like, okay, maybe how can we make it more nutritious? So I might take some supplements. I might add liver or like ah an egg yolk or two. So I'm always thinking,
00:29:12
chrisyzen
What's the the most bang for buck, the smallest amount of food with the most nutritional density? So things like liver are gonna be great for that, egg yolks from healthy chickens that are well fed,
Debunking Spinach and Conclusion
00:29:27
chrisyzen
things like that. The meat is a big one, the cheese is, you know, this kind of stuff.
00:29:33
chrisyzen
um yeah so and look if that doesn't convince you just look at Popeye Popeye the Sailor Man right I mean that guy clearly had massive tumors on his arms right what do you think those tumors were caused by probably the spinach probably the oxalates and also he clearly had some kind of learning disability so that was probably from the spinach as well and very aggressive very very aggressive so there you go he couldn't even string a freaking right sentence together what was the song hold on let me see where's the thing so I'm pop by the sailor man I'm pop by the sailor man I'm I'm strong to the finish because I eats miss spinach I'm pop by the sailor man so look
00:30:24
chrisyzen
Guy Cleary had a learning disability, he's his know um standard for for for health, and I don't think we should be taking any nutritional lessons from him, so hopefully that will convince you. um Okay, that is that is all for today. Thank you for tuning in, and I'll see you on the next episode.