When you think of spinach, what typically comes to mind? A food you hate? A leafy green vegetable? A staple of any healthy diet? All of the above? Well, as it turns out, spinach has a multitude of health benefits that you should be aware of.
Karly O’Brien, MS, RD, Campus Dietitian for Stevens Institute of Technology, explained the powers of spinach best when she stated in an email, “Dark green vegetables, like spinach, are rich in fiber, vitamins and minerals and tend to be very low in calories, making them one of the most nutrient dense foods you can eat. Among the many health benefits spinach, and other dark leafy greens provide, one is its superior role in eye health.”
O’Brien also noted, “Similar to carrots, spinach is high in carotenoids, which our body then turns into Vitamin A, a fat-soluble vitamin best absorbed when consumed with healthy fats such as olive oil, nuts, avocado, and eggs. Cooking spinach will also increase its bioavailability-just ½ cup of cooked spinach, provides 64% of your daily value for Vitamin A.”
If any of the above was not enough to convince you to eat more spinach, maybe the proposed ability of specially-engineered spinach to detect explosives will make you feel more inclined.
Back in October of 2016, news broke that engineers at MIT discovered how spinach plants could be engineered to signal the presence of nearby explosives. The lead authors of the research paper include Min Hao Wong, an MIT graduate student, and Juan Pablo Giraldo, a former MIT postdoc. Due to the internet’s strange pattern of occasionally resurfacing old news, the story of this food’s superpower has recently been praised much more than ever before.
Plant Nanobionics is a method used by researchers which entails the insertion of nanoparticles into plants to “give it non-native functions,” according to Michael Strano, the professor who led the research being discussed.
Spinach plants, through plant nanobionics, were manipulated through the use of vascular infusion to be able to detect nitroaromatics — chemical compounds that are frequently found in explosives; landmines are common types of explosives that use nitroaromatic chemical compounds.
Plants constantly test the groundwater’s chemical composition they have contact with via their roots. In the engineered spinach plants, when one of the nitroaromatic compounds is discovered, “carbon nanotubes embedded in the plant leaves emit a fluorescent signal that can be read with an infrared camera.” From there, the cameras can be used to send email alerts regarding the presence of potentially-hazardous chemicals nearby.
Amazingly, the spinach plants were able to detect nitroaromatic chemicals from a meter away. It is yet to be known if such reach has increased since the original publication date. However, there is much potential for further development of these spinach-detection systems in future research endeavors.
Spinach does not have the spotlight in only chemical detection, as scientists from American University have recently found potential in spinach to be used as a renewable and sustainable catalyst in crafting metal-air batteries.
When ground into a fine powder, spinach leaves are able to be converted into carbon nanosheets which can catalyze, or speed up, the production of metal-air batteries; the high content of iron and nitrogen in spinach leaves grants them such catalytic properties.
Only time can reveal the many more potentials of spinach, among other plants, that can be explored through plant nanobionics and other engineering techniques. In the meantime, even if unmodified spinach can’t turn you into an explosive-detecting superhuman, it is still a good idea for you to incorporate more spinach in your diet, as its health benefits are bountiful.
Next time you are on campus, make your way over to Pierce Dining Hall, as O’Brien highlights the many different places you can find spinach in the dining hall, from the salad bar to the omelet and pasta stations which are offered daily. You may also luck out and find the superfood incorporated into dishes such as, “lentil and spinach soup, Mediterranean chickpeas with spinach and sundried tomato, or classic sautéed spinach.”
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