How Does Solarplast® Unlock The Biochemical Magic Of Spinach?

Solarplast® utilizes a revolutionary process that removes the tough cell wall of spinach without destroying the underlying lipid layer that protects and houses all of the powerful nutrients inside.

I had always heard that spinach was good for you. I remember my parents compelling me to eat it when I was kid, and it was for a period of time, my one allotted vegetable that I wasn’t required to eat. It just tasted healthy, and when you’re a kid, healthy is generally not part of your palate.

Fast forward 25 years and I love spinach. I love to eat it raw in Greek pasta salads. I love it juiced with fruits and other vegetables. I love the elegant simplicity of it sautéed with garlic and olive oil. I probably eat spinach at least twice a week so thankfully I’m getting much better nutrition as an adult compared to when I was a kid right? Not necessarily.

Spinach is one of the most nutritious foods on the planet. It’s loaded with vitamins and minerals including Vitamins A, C, E, K, Folate, Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium, and Iron. It’s also got an incredible antioxidant load. The problem is that only a small fraction of all of these great nutrients are accessible to us.

Let’s dive into the pros and cons of various preparation methods for spinach and vegetables in general…

 

Should I Eat Raw Spinach In Salads To Get The Most Benefit?

Raw spinach and other veggies are certainly good for us. Their cell membranes are still pristine and intact. Many of the essential nutrients found in spinach are more available to our bodies when it’s consumed raw, such as folate, B2 (riboflavin,) niacin, vitamin C, and potassium. The enzymes in raw spinach also haven’t been cooked and denatured. Enzymes in vegetables that are grown in nutrient-rich soils help us digest the plants’ proteins and carbohydrates. Spinach is one of the most enzyme-rich foods out there along with pineapples, papayas, tomatoes, carrots, and avocados. So raw spinach is the way to go right? Unfortunately, there are some big problems with raw vegetables…

 

Problem 1: Cellulose

Cellulose is a polysaccharide that comprises a plant’s cell wall and gives the plant its structure. Humans, and most mammals for that matter, can’t digest cellulose at all. In fact, most herbivores tend to be large animals in order to house large digestive systems that can handle eating nothing but plant material. Cows, goats, and other ruminants have multiple stomachs and even re-chew their food once it’s partially digested to get the most nutrition possible from the plants they eat. The bottom line is cellulose is literally a barrier to accessing the nutritional goodness of spinach.

Problem 2: Oxalate

Raw spinach also contains oxalate, an organic compound found in many leafy greens. Oxalate (also known as oxalic acid) inhibits the absorption of important minerals like calcium and iron. Oxalate binds to these minerals in the gut and prevents the body from absorbing them. Take spinach for instance, it’s a good source of calcium, but it’s also high in oxalate, rendering a lot of the calcium unusable by the body. To make matters worse, the two compounds bind together to form calcium oxalate of which nearly 75% of all kidney stones and gallstones are composed. Because it binds to many other nutrients, long-term consumption of high oxalate foods can also lead to various nutrient deficiencies. It’s almost as if raw spinach has the ability to do as much harm as good.

 

Cooking Spinach The Proper Way Has Plenty Of Advantages But There Are Still Drawbacks

The good news is that cooking spinach drastically reduces the amount of oxalate. Steaming spinach has been shown to cut the oxalate content by up to 50% and also allows the spinach to retain its folate content. When you cook spinach, you’re able to break down the plant’s fibers and cell walls, releasing more of the nutrients that are bound up.

There are a few more reasons to eat your spinach cooked. Consuming spinach that has been heated allows you to absorb higher levels of vitamins A and E, protein, fiber, zinc, B1 (thiamin,) calcium, and iron. Spinach also contains carotenoids, phytonutrients responsible for the bright red, yellow and orange hues in plants. Important carotenoids, such as beta-carotene, lutein, and zeaxanthin, also become more absorbable when you cook spinach. This is important because these carotenoids are powerful antioxidants that protect our vision, skin, and overall cell health.

Unfortunately the cooking process also breaks down important enzymes and vitamins, robbing you of many of the important nutritious benefits. So what’s the best way to cook spinach to make sure you’re not actually losing nutritional value? Many of spinach’s nutrients, including vitamin C and the B vitamins are water soluble, and a large percentage of these are lost when spinach is boiled or steamed. To increase vitamin retention, use quick-cooking methods that do not include water. Sautéing or stir-frying in olive oil or lightly blanching limits the amount of nutrients lost from cooking, though the heat from all of these cooking methods will denature and degrade the enzymes in your food.

I want to be clear: eating fruits and vegetables both raw and cooked is really important. You get access to fiber, enzymes, and certain vitamins in raw plants and better access to certain vitamins, minerals, and carotenoids while removing “anti-nutrients” such as oxalate in cooked ones. A diet with a good balance of raw and cooked plants such as spinach is likely the best approach, but with all of our scientific innovation, there has to be a way to supplement and have the best of both worlds.

 

Solarplast® Is Science’s Solution To Nature’s Barriers

Solarplast® is kind of like a map to spinach’s hidden treasures. It won’t replace everything you get out of a serving of delicious raw or cooked spinach in your diet, but Solarplast® does offer unique access to incredible health compounds in spinach that were unobtainable before now. These compounds represent something that is causing great excitement in the nutrition world. You see, within every spinach cell lies all the ingredients needed to fuel the glutathione pathway. Glutathione is known as the master antioxidant in your body because of its antioxidant power, versatility, and ability to recharge other antioxidants such as vitamin C. Glutathione is a key to health and is regarded by some in the nutrition world as the “holy grail” of antioxidants. Until now, effective nutritional approaches to boosting glutathione levels in the body have been limited.

Incredibly, the therapeutic and clinically studied dose for Solarplast® to detoxify your body, energize your cells, neutralize damaging free radicals, and heal properly from illness is only 100 mg. You could eat pounds of spinach and not get these same benefits.

 

We’re just not able to utilize the “biochemical magic” within spinach because of that tough cellulose barrier. If you eat raw spinach you’re thwarted by the cellulose wall and if you cook or juice spinach you destroy the lipid cell membrane, also knows as a “spheroplast,” and all the precious nutrients contained within leak out and degrade. There was no way to win until Solarplast® came along. Through a revolutionary and proprietary process, the tough cell wall of organic spinach is broken down without destroying the underlying lipid layer that protects and houses all of the powerful nutrients inside the cell. The list of nutrients now accessible to us with Solarplast® is impressive and includes but is not limited to Glutathione peroxidase and reductase, Superoxide dismutase (SOD), Catalase, N-acetyl-L-cysteine, NADPH, and ATP. With all of these amazing nutrients, Solarplast® supercharges your body’s glutathione-producing machinery. Adequate glutathione levels mean you can protect and repair your liver and even slow the aging process. Furthermore, you’ll be able to detoxify your body, energize your cells, neutralize damaging free radicals, and heal properly from illness. Incredibly, the therapeutic and clinically studied dose for Solarplast® to do all of this is only 100 mg. You could eat pounds of spinach and not get these same benefits.

In summation, eat raw spinach for the enzymes and water soluble vitamins, eat lightly sautéed or blanched spinach for the oxalate-free minerals and carotenoids, and take a supplement with at least 100 mg of Solarplast® in it to get all the biochemical magic inside a pristine spinach “spheroplast” for exponential antioxidant production.