Food - Drink
Is It Worth Buying Canned Spinach Over Fresh?
By KATHERINE BECK
There are two options when it comes to buying spinach: canned and fresh. The one that’s best for you depends on your recipe and the taste and texture you’re trying to achieve.
Raw spinach is crisp, sweet, savory, and slightly rich because of the minerals it contains. It’s best cooked in the microwave or on the stovetop to maintain color and nutrition.
However, spinach has a notoriously short shelf life — about a week and a half after being harvested — and it will become unusable even faster if it is kept in a moist environment.
The average price for one pound of fresh spinach is also around $3.83, which is rather expensive considering how much the leaves will shrink once they have been cooked.
Canned spinach is pre-cooked, soft, and slightly salty with a dull-brown color that is less appealing than bright green, but it has a shelf life of multiple years compared to days.
Canned spinach is far cheaper than fresh, with an average price of $1.13 per can, and both products contain plenty of vitamins and minerals, though fresh has slightly more.
From a price, shelf life, and quantity standpoint, frozen spinach may actually be the way to go. It has a long shelf life, like canned, but a fresher color and flavor, like fresh.