Hi, I'm Dr. Josh Axe and welcome to my kitchen.
Today I'm going to be making Grecian Spinach, which is a recipe that I've been getting requests
for a lot lately so I wanted to take the time to show you guys how to make it.
Let me start off by saying of all the recipes I've made, this may be the most nutrient-dense
of all the recipes.
It's right up there with the kale shake we did on an earlier segment.
The reason is that spinach is a very nutrient-dense food as well as some of the other foods we're
going to go over here.
So I'm going to get started making Grecian Spinach.
So for starters here, we're going to start off by adding coconut oil into a pan.
So we're going to go ahead and get this skillet burning, get it nice and hot.
We're going to cook this spinach in coconut oil.
The reason I always use coconut oil is because it doesn't oxidize under heat, and it's a
good, healthy sort of fat.
Now, I'm going to talk a little bit about oils here.
A lot of people tend to use canola oil or vegetable oil.
Those are bad fats.
Those are going to cause heart disease.
They're hydrogenated rancid oils you want to stay completely away from.
Now, the great benefit of coconut oil is it has something called medium chain triglycerides,
which is a type of saturated fat.
For a long time people have said, "Oh, all saturated fats are bad and you want to stay
away from them."
Whenever anyone says that to me, saturated fat is bad, the first thing I ask them is,
is women's breast milk bad?
And most of the time they'll say, 'No, it's essential for kids.
It's very important."
Well, 50% of coconut oil contains what's called lauric acid, which is the exact same sort
of fat found in women's breast milk and so actually the type of fat in here, lauric acid,
is known to be an antibacterial and antifungal.
It actually kills off bad bacteria in the body.
Also, the medium chain fats in here help your body burn fat and lose weight.
It's not even nine calories like most fat.
It's only eight calories.
It's in a category of its own.
So coconut oil is great for weight loss, it's great to cook with, again, a lot of benefits
here when you're looking at the coconut.
So this is the sort of oil we're going to use.
What we're going to do is take about a big tablespoon here of coconut oil and add this
in.
Now when you are buying coconut oil, I want to tell you this, you want to make sure it's
virgin or extra virgin coconut oil and that it is unrefined.
You do not want to get the refined coconut oil because you take a good fat and turn it
into a bad fat.
So again, unrefined and unprocessed, that's what you're looking for in the coconut oil.
And you're going to find this in most health food stores, you can buy it online, or in
the organic sections of most grocery stores.
They're starting to carry the coconut oil.
But again, you have to make sure it is unrefined
All right, the next thing here we're going to start with is we're going to take an onion
here.
We're going to take half a red onion and just simply go ahead and get this chopped up.
We're going to take it here and just start cutting.
Onion is great because it actually contains allicin, which is a natural antiviral and
a natural antibacterial.
It also has sulfur, which is going to go in and clean out your arteries and help detox
your body of heavy metals.
So if you have ever been exposed to any kind of heavy metals, the sulfur in onions is really
going to help with that.
That's what gives garlic and onion its smell, is the sulfur.
We're going to take the onion here and we're going to add that in first in the pan here.
Let that start cooking here in the coconut oil.
After that we're going to start adding in the spinach.
Let me tell you why spinach is so amazing.
We have about one pound here of spinach, but you'll see it will start cooking down as we
start adding that in the pan.
Spinach is a superfood.
Of all the foods you can eat, spinach is probably in my top three lists of food, of all the
foods around the planet, and here's the reason why.
One serving or about one cup of cooked spinach contains about 25% of your daily intake of
calcium, 25% of your daily intake of potassium, 40% magnesium, 70% folate, almost 40% of actually
some other minerals like manganese, and so it's loaded with nutrients.
Also, it has five grams of protein for one cup of spinach.
Five grams of fiber, and it's alkaline which is going to help reduce acidity in your body,
reverse disease, and it's anti-inflammatory, so it's great for your joints and great for
reversing disease for the body.
So overall, you can see spinach is loaded with vitamins minerals and nutrients.
It is one of the most nutrient dense foods in the planet.
Actually, a guy named Dr. Joel Fuhrman has something called a nutrient density scoring
system, and from 0 to 1000 points, spinach scores close to 800 points, which is up there
with kale.
So those green leafy vegetables are the most nutrient-dense foods you should possibly eat.
So again, we've got the onions cooking up here.
We're going to mix those around a bit.
The next thing we're going to do is we're going to add in some spinach here.
To start off here, we're going to take some big handfuls of spinach.
Add those and just let that start cooking.
We'll probably add a little bit more as time goes on, a little bit more spinach into there.
Now the next thing we're going to be adding into this recipe is lemon peel.
What you're going to do, we've got a little bit chopped up here already, but you're going
to take a lemon and you're just going to simply get a grater and just start running it like
this.
Lemon peel, just like the rest of the lemon, is full of vitamin C, really good in vitamin
C which actually is going to help boost your immune system.
That's one of the major benefits of vitamin C.
So we've got a little bit more here.
We're going to take that and add it in.
You're going to do about a teaspoon or so of the lemon peel.
We're going to take that and we're just going to sprinkle it on top here of this Grecian
Spinach recipe.
All right, and I'm going to take a minute and start mixing this up a bit.
Turn it down.
You want to be cooking this on about medium heat, is about right.
Okay, cooking this recipe, now that the spinach is starting to go down we're going to put
about one more big handful of spinach on there.
Then we're going to start adding in some sea salt.
You want to switch from the regular salt to the sea salt.
Sea salt also has magnesium, potassium, a lot of good other trace minerals in it.
We're going to put about a teaspoon or so of sea salt on this recipe.
So we're going to add that, about a teaspoon.
I just like to eyeball it, but again, if you want to be really specific, you're going to
add about a teaspoon of the sea salt on there.
We're going to take another minute and mix this up a bit.
These onions are looking nice and soft in here.
We got it cooked to about where we want it to.
I don't overcook this, so the total recipe takes about three or four minutes and you're
done with it.
So we're got that there.
Then the last thing we're going to add in is goat cheese.
You can add in feta cheese or goat cheese.
It's great to top it off with it and it really just adds a lot more flavor.
Goat cheese is amazing because it's loaded with calcium, loaded with good protein, it's
actually alkaline in nature.
But if you're looking to actually get a good source of protein and calcium specifically,
goat cheese is going to be the best sort of cheese you can eat.
And it's actually going to be much better than doing cow's milk or cow's dairy for most
people.
So we're just going to sprinkle it on here as well, like so.
A little bit of that goat cheese on there, or again, feta is another option.
And at this point what we're going to do is continue to mix it up.
I'm just going to go ahead and turn the burner off at this point now that we got it about
where we want it.
You're just going to take the time and mix it up.
I'm just telling you, this is one of the most delicious recipes you're ever going to try,
and it's great as a side dish with almost any sort of food you want to do.
It's good with Italian food and it's good with just American food.
All right, we've got it there and I'm going to go ahead and put that on a plate and serve
it.
Just remember, spinach, very nutrient-dense, onions are going to help fight disease in
your body, lemon peel is full of vitamin C, and we've got the sea salt full of the different
electrolytes, vitamins and minerals.
So go ahead and try out Grecian Spinach.
I hope you enjoy it.