Cooked vs. Raw Spinach: Which Is More Nutritious?

Summary: Is raw spinach better than cooked spinach? It turns out, both are great for you, just in different ways! Raw spinach holds onto heat-sensitive nutrients like vitamin C, folate, and potassium. However, raw spinach also has "oxalates," which can block your body from absorbing calcium and iron.

Cooking the spinach reduces those oxalates, which helps your body absorb the iron and calcium much better. Cooked spinach is also easier on the stomach for people with digestion issues like IBS. If you do cook it, steaming or microwaving is better than boiling so you don't lose as many vitamins into the water. Also, because spinach shrinks so much when heated, one cup of cooked spinach packs way more nutrients than one cup of raw spinach simply because you are eating a lot more leaves! At the end of the day, dietitians say the most important thing is just to eat your veggies, whether they are in a salad, smoothie, or soup.

Source: Verywell Health URL: verywellhealth.com/cooked-vs-raw-spinach-11907744 (opens in new tab)