Spinach

aise your hand if you missed spinach in September and October.

I sure did, and now that spinach is available again, the time is ripe for me to remind you about just how healthful it is. Popeye had good reason to love this versatile green: it's a nutritional powerhouse. Beta carotene, lutein, vitamin C, and folate are found in large quantities in spinach. Plus, a cup of the raw stuff has just 7 calories!

Beta carotene is converted into vitamin A in the body, where it acts as an antioxidant that may help prevent cataracts and certain cancers. It can also help boost the immune system. Lutein, another carotenoid, acts as an antioxidant to protect against macular degeneration in the eyes, and may prevent plaque from building up in the arteries. Lutein consumption may play a role in maintaining the health of the skin, as well as the breasts and cervix in women. One cup of raw spinach (half a serving) contains about 4 of the 6 milligrams of lutein that you should consume daily. Although spinach is rich in iron and calcium, it is also rich in oxalic acid, which binds to these important nutrients and prevents the majority of them from being absorbed by the body. However, oxalic acid does not interfere with the absorption of calcium or iron from other foods that you might be eating along with your spinach. In order to ensure that you get the most nutrients out of your spinach, be sure to eat it both raw and cooked, since heat releases some of the nutrients, such as lutein, and destroys others.

A serving of spinach is two cups of raw leaves, and one cup of cooked leaves. That small amount contains 80% of your Daily Value (DV) of vitamin A, 30% of your DV for folate, and 30% of your DV for vitamin C.

Spinach is available year-round, and is conveniently available prewashed in bulk, bags and boxes (though, I always like to wash my packaged greens again when I get home). Baby spinach is great for salads and cooking, while mature spinach is mainly used for cooking. Organic spinach is almost always available, so I make that my first choice. When choosing spinach, look for crisp-but-tender emerald-green leaves with slender stems. If the spinach is in a bag, it should feel springy when you squeeze the bag. Pass up spinach that is yellowish or wilted. Store spinach in the plastic bag or box you buy it in, and do not wash it until just before you are ready to prepare it.

All bunched spinach must be washed before you eat it to remove the sand and grit. Trim off any roots and drop the leaves into a big bowl of cool water. Gently swish them around with your hands, then lift them out, let the sand and grit settle, empty and refill the bowl, and repeat the process until the spinach is clean. For crisp spinach salads, dry the spinach in a salad spinner, wrap it in paper towels, and refrigerate it for up to 3 hours. If you are steaming the vegetable, simply cook the damp leaves in a covered pot for 3-5 minutes over medium-high heat. Alternatively, you can microwave spinach in a loosely covered microwave-safe dish for two minutes for every eight ounces.

This month, try my recipes for Miso and Truffle-Glazed Sea Bass and Spinach with Pine Nuts and Currants.

Chocolate Therapy

t's always great to have one less thing to feel guilty about. Here's the latest and greatest: dark chocolate works like aspirin to help thin the blood and prevent blood clots that could lead to a heart attack or stroke.

A recent study at Johns Hopkins University that was looking at aspirin's affect on heart disease required that participants forego chocolate, red wine, grapefruit juice and caffeinated beverages (including tea) for 24-48 hours before their blood tests. Approximately 12% of those in the study could not stop eating chocolate for even that short amount of time. Their blood was tested anyway and the researchers found that the chocolate they had eaten seemed to slow their blood clotting time (which is a good thing). This is the same effect that the researchers were expecting to see with aspirin therapy, though aspirin does seem to have a stronger effect on making platelets less "sticky."

There is still much research that needs to be done in this area-especially on how much dark chocolate we should eat and how often we should eat it. Also, there are different risk factors that would probably determine if chocolate therapy is right for you or not. If you are overweight, adding more calories through chocolate would probably increase your heart disease risk rather than lowering it, and if you have a history of heart disease, then it's probably better to take your aspirin. For those who are healthy and are at a healthy weight, though, I recommend that high-quality dark chocolate be your first choice when it's time to indulge. My favorites are Dove dark chocolate Promises and Scharffen Berger 70% cacao dark chocolate bars.