FreeRepublic readers should always be better educated than BBC writer, so....
“9. The popularity of spinach as a health food, which resulted in Popeye the Sailor Man and generations of children staring miserably at a plate bearing the canned product, resulted from a misplaced decimal point in calculations of the amount of iron in it.”
Is refuted here...
“Spinach Iron Decimal Point Error Myth Busted
The popular 32 year old myth that a misplaced decimal point in the published results of the iron content of spinach by Professor von Wolff, or else von Bunge, in the 19th century influenced scientists in the 20th century to fail to check the facts and to simply recommend spinach for its over-inflated iron content is finally busted.”
http://super-myths.blogspot.com/2010/12/spinach-iron-decimal-point-error-myth.html
h/t to JoeDetweiler; BykrBayb; the scotsman
The myth is one thing, the actual iron content is another:
http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/cooked-vs-raw-spinach-iron-content-1420.html
A 100-gram serving of fresh, raw spinach leaves provides 23 calories and 2.71 milligrams of iron, according to the USDA. The same size serving of fresh spinach that has been boiled without salt and then drained provides an equal number of calories and 3.57 milligrams of iron. Freezing spinach appears to lower its iron content, according to USDA data, which states that a 100-gram serving of frozen chopped or whole-leaf spinach provides 29 calories and 1.89 milligrams of iron. Boiling such a serving of frozen spinach without salt and then draining it minimally increases its iron content to 1.96 milligrams, while also slightly increasing the energy it provides to 35 calories.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinach#Iron
Spinach, along with other green leafy vegetables,[10] is considered to be rich in iron. For example, the United States Department of Agriculture states that a 180-g serving of boiled spinach contains 6.43 mg of iron, whereas a 170-g ground hamburger patty contains at most 4.42 mg.[11] However, spinach contains iron absorption-inhibiting substances, including high levels of oxalate, which can bind to the iron to form ferrous oxalate and render much of the iron in spinach unusable by the body.[12] In addition to preventing absorption and use, high levels of oxalates remove iron from the body.[13] But some studies have found that the addition of oxalic acid to the diet may improve iron absorption in rats over a diet with spinach without additional oxalic acid.