THE answer is Popeye the Sailor Man. He is a hero to America’s spinach industry.

The palak-guzzling cartoon, influenced the eating habits of Americans to such an extent that spinach became the third-most popular food after turkey and ice-cream in the 1930s. In gratitude, the US spinach capital, Crystal City in Texas, erected a statue to honour Popeye.

There is a statue of Popeye in the town of Chester, llinois, too. Chester is the birthplace of Elzie Segar, the creator of the character. The bronze statue, 1.8m tall and weighing 400 kilos, was erected in Segar Memorial Park in 1977. Vandals, presumably spinach-haters, made three attempts to destroy it but Popeye proved too tough for them, suffering only minor damage each time.

Spinach is a good source of vitamin A, the B vitamin, folic acid and vitamin c. It also contains a fair amount of potassium, calcium and iron but because of its oxalic acid content, the calcium and iron are not well absorbed by the body. It has a large amount of fibre.