Maybe Popeye Wasn't as Strong as We all Thought

In 1870, some German scientists did a study to find the iron content in spinach.  Dr, E von Wolf published his findings, but with one minor error. His decimal point was one spot too far to the right. So, for example, instead of 1 serving of spinach containing 0.8 mg of iron, his study claimed it contained 8 mg of iron. With red meat containing 2.2 mg of iron in a serving size, this made spinach seem like an iron gold-mine (metal puns!).


So what does this study have to do with Popeye? Well, the error wasn't fixed until the 1930's, and people had spent decades believing that spinach had 10 times as much iron as it really did.  When the character of Popeye was created, he found his almost super human strength from spinach.  By the time the error was found, sales in spinach had already increased by 30% due to the comic strip. The new, accurate information was less easy to spread than the myth that Popeye was helping to perpetuate. Even to this day some people still believe that spinach has a higher iron content than red meat. And the creator of Popeye certainly wasn't going to switch out his iconic can of spinach for a slab of beef, or decrease his hero's strength by a factor of 10! If you'd like to read a lot more about spinach, iron, and Popeye (and when I say a lot, I mean 28 pages) click here!

For those of still believing that spinach is the iron motherload, all it has to say for itself is "I am what I am, and that's all that I am."