A popular although perhaps low calorie food is lettuce – this food is normally eaten raw such as in a salad or also in other functions, such as even replacing bread to make a “lettuce sandwich”. Looking at the nutritional value of lettuce, we can note that it provides vitamin A, as well as folic acid and also Lactucarium. In fact, this is known as Lettuce Opium and is said to be a mild opiate type of substance that is present for all types of this vegetable. In actuality, it is said that Romans and Egyptians used this property of the food to eat at the finish of a meal in order to bring on sleep.

If one looks in more details at the nutritional value of lettuce, we can see that for a portion of 100g or 3.5 oz of this food, that it would provide 55 kJ. Moreover, it would provide 2.2 g of carbohydrates, as well as 1.1g of dietary fibre, 0.2 g of fat, 1.4 g of protein and also 96 g of water. As to the approximate percentage RDAs that this food would provide, we can see that Vitamn A is 21%, B9 18%, C 5%, K 97%, iron 5% and potassium 5%. Thus, we can see that by itself lettuce has little fuel for energetic activities, however, it can provide some useful nutrients such as for vitamin K etc..

(reference:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lettuce)

When considering the nutritional value of spinach, we can observe that this food has been popularised in being very healthy by “Popeye” in popular media.Looking generally at this food, we can glean that it is said to be high nutritionally and especially so for antioxidants – it is asserted to be more so when either fresh, steamed or also quickly boiled. Moreover, this food is stated to be valuable for vitamin A (especially lutein), plus also vitamins C, E, K and also for magnesium, moreover manganese and also folate. Furthermore there is betaine as well as iron, B2 vitamin, calcium and a range of other nutrients as well. It has been also said that recently opioid peptides which as also called rubiscolins were sourced also in spinach. A warning is given that by boiling spinach, this could greater than half lower the folate level.

Looking in more detail at the iron content of this food in relation to the nutritional value of spinach, along with other green leafy vegetables it is said to be valuable. Furthermore, the USDA says that 180g of this food will give 6.43 mg, whilst a 170g hamburger patty will give a lower amount at 4.42 mg for the most. Moreover, it is said that all iron in grains and vegetables is nonheme iron, relative to ¾ in animal food sources. It is asserted that the body’s capacity to absorb noniron can be helped through eating foods high in vitamin C. Furthermore, analysing calcium in more detail, we are informed that this food is the lowest bioavaialabe of calcium sources. Moreover, it is stated that people can take in about 50% of calcium in broccoli, whist that amount is only 5% for spinach.

(reference:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinach)