To answer the question, yes, you can juice spinach. However, this green leafy vegetable is very soft, so some juices may not be able to handle it. Some juicers will give you a little bit of spinach juice, and the majority will be wasted in the pulp tray. So does it make more sense if you blend spinach in a blender or just eat it in a salad? In this article, we are going to answer all those questions and so that you should know all the pros and cons when it comes to juicing spinach.
Can You Juice Spinach and Consume a Lot of It?
No, you cannot consume too much spinach. Even if it contains a lot of good things such as minerals, antioxidants, and iron, it also includes a few things that you do not want too much of. Spinach contains oxalic acid, which can cause joint pain and kidney stones. Take note that you do not get too much oxalic acid if you’re simply making a green drink, but if you consume about 20 ounces of pure spinach juice in a day, it’s safe to say that it is too much.
When it comes to cooking spinach, it is highly recommended that you should just blanch or steam it. This process helps remove some of the oxalic acids and allows you to get more health some of the oxalic acids and will enable you to get more health benefits of the spinach’s antioxidant such as Vitamin K, A, and C.
So you can juice spinach and be mindful of how much of it you’re going to consume. This is why when you’re making a spinach juice or a spinach smoothie, it is highly advisable to add other ingredients to make it taste so much better, such as pineapple, apples, lemons, and other vegetables like carrots or cucumbers.
How to Juice Spinach
When you’re juicing spinach, you first need to wash it and pat it dry before you start to remove the stems from the leaves. After that, you will roll the leaves and put them into the chute, then feed the stems in after. If your juicer has a pusher feature, you can use that to help force the spinach down the chute.
Please note that spinach and any other leafy greens are best juiced with a masticating juicer because they are more powerful and produce less waste than a centrifugal juicer.
Can You Juice Cooked Spinach?
Now that you know about spinach and oxalic acid and how it can be removed once you blanch the spinach before juicing, the next question is, can you juice cooked spinach? First, when you steam or blanch spinach, it will become moist, and when you juice the wet spinach, you will end up with a lot of water in your juice and not the actual spinach juice. Second, cooking spinach eliminates some of the natural benefits that you’re after. Even though the antioxidants in the spinach are not destroyed, chlorophyll, a super nutrient that has limitless healing potential, will be eliminated by the heat. This is why when you’re juicing cooked spinach, you will be missing out on the chlorophyll.
How Can You Safely Juice Raw Spinach?
As we mentioned, the only thing you should be concerned about when consuming too much spinach is the presence of too much iron and oxalic acid. These are not things most people wonder about because no one would eat bowl after bowl of spinach in one sitting. But when you juice spinach alone, you can end up with a lot of nutrients such as iron, for instance.
That is why if you want to make spinach juice, we suggest that you mix it with other fruits or vegetables such as lemons, apples, celery, carrots, bananas, and cucumber.
How About Frozen Spinach?
For starters, you can also juice frozen spinach. However, we cannot guarantee that it will taste as good as the juice that you will get from fresh spinach. Not only that, it will not have the same number of benefits that you will typically get in spinach. Frozen spinach is cooked before it’s bagged, meaning that the nutrients are destroyed during the process of freezing, which is why you will not get the health benefits you’re expecting.
Aside from having a bad taste, juicing frozen spinach is slushy and cold. It will also take you a lot of time to prepare compared to fresh spinach. This is because you will have to thaw the frozen spinach and strain it before starting juicing it. If you skip the straining part, you will end up with wet spinach and have too much water instead of juice in your spinach juice. Some people like to squeeze the water out of the spinach with the help of a cheesecloth or paper towel instead of straining it, but it will just take too much of your time.
This is why it is safe to say that you can juice frozen spinach, but it is not ideal.
How Much Spinach Juice Should You Consume in a Day?
If you’re worried about the excess iron content of spinach, it is best to ask your doctor how much spinach juice you can consume. But, as a general rule, it is ideal if you only consume a modest amount of spinach juice in a day. If you do not plan to eat spinach, then you can just drink more spinach juice than if you were eating it for lunch and dinner.