Spinach Teeth

If you're a spinach eater, you may have noticed that your teeth feel chalky after eating it (spinach teeth). This is a result of high quantities of Oxalic acid found in the leafy green.

Jennifer Moltoni - Administrative Coordinator at the Department of Oral Medicine, Infection and Immunity at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine says "when you chew spinach, the calcium in your saliva combines with the oxalic acid, and then calcium oxalate crystals are created. It's those crystals that stick to your teeth and make it feel gritty."

If you have a thing with textures, you can boil or steam the spinach to help get rid of the calcium oxalate. Or you can squeeze lemon juice on top of fresh spinach to help dissolve the oxalic acid.

I thought this was very interesting! I don't eat a lot of spinach so I never noticed the chalky texture but when I do make spinach as a side dish for dinner, I always steam it. As I mentioned above, steaming helps get rid of the calcium oxalate, that's probably why I have never noticed the weird texture before!