Today is Fresh Spinach Day! I can’t think of a better way to celebrate than with the sailor who made spinach famous, Popeye!
Here are seven facts about the influence spinach had on Popeye through the years:
-
In 1870, Enrich von Wolf misplaced a decimal while researching the amount of iron in spinach making it 35 milligrams rather than 3.5 milligrams. This made spinach legendary, and the studio executives recommended spinach to make Popeye strong because of its celebrated health properties. The mistake was not corrected until 1937 when someone rechecked the numbers.
-
Before spinach became his thing, Popeye got his strength from rubbing Bernice, a whiffle hen, that granted luck to anyone who rubbed her feathers.
-
Popeye helped to increase American consumption of spinach by a third.
-
Spinach was briefly children’s third most popular food after ice cream and turkey.
-
Popeye’s love for spinach first showed up when he gets beat up and thrown into a spinach field.
-
Spinach not only gave Popeye superhuman strength but also abilities like skillful dancing and playing the piano.
-
A Popeye statue, the first cartoon character to get their own statue, stands in Crystal City, Texas, who call themselves the Spinach Capital of the World. The statue was made to celebrate the growing industry of spinach.
featured image via culture.pl