Is there protein in spinach/leafy green vegetables?

Question

I am having a VERY competitive bet with my older brother. He says no, there is not protein in spinach/vegetables - at least none that is there naturally. I say yes, there is. If I win, he does the dishes for a week. If I lose, I thoroughly clean his car. Can you give me a thorough answer WITH sources? And no vegetarian/vegan sources (he doesn't believe in that)? THANK YOU!

1) A CREDIBLE resource. No weight loss websites.

2) Enoug protein to live on?

Answer 1

Of course!
All living things contain protein.
Humans are herbivores therefore, such things are easy for humans to live on.
I should add that humans utilize amino acids to make our own proteins, and need not consume whole proteins. It's better to focus on amino acids as breaking down whole proteins takes more energy. Fruits are packed full or amino acids, so are lots of other things. You can officially call your brother an ignoramus (well, you didn't know the answer either...).

Remember the Popeye cartoons? "Eat your spinach to grow up to be big and strong," is what all parents used to say to their kids. Remember, Whimpy ate hamburgers and strong Popeye ate spinach... it was a no-brainer way back then.

Source? Um, how about a nutritional reference:
http://www.bestbread.ca/QUICK_-_REFERENCE_NUTRITION_CHART.pdf

Answer 2

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
Is there protein in spinach/leafy green vegetables?
I am having a VERY competitive bet with my older brother. He says no, there is not protein in spinach/vegetables - at least none that is there naturally. I say yes, there is. If I win, he does the dishes for a week. If I lose, I thoroughly clean his car. Can you give me a thorough answer WITH...

Answer 3

There is protein in spinach. A good website with nutritional data for all kinds of food is at: http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-C00001-01c20gN.html.
As you can see from the link there is 5 g of protein per cup of cooked spinach. And further down the page, they show the amino acid breakdown/quality of the protein, which shows that the protein in spinach is complete/as good as that in meat. However, if you were to eat no other source of protein (which is highly unlikely, as protein is in many foods), you would have to eat like 10 cups of cooked spinach a day to get ~50 g, which is around what a woman needs. But if you are also eating other things, like milk, cheese, beans, nuts, etc, you will be getting other good sources of complete or almost complete protein. In addition, things like whole grains, breads, whole wheat pastas, other vegetables, etc also have proteins, although not 'complete' ones; your body can use a variety of these proteins to make complete proteins.

Answer 4

Is There Protein In Vegetables

Answer 5

Yes, there is protein in spinach and pretty much all other vegetation. Where precisely does your brother think all those large herbivores like cattle and elephants get the protein they need to grow that big? Try nutritiondata.com for proof.

Answer 6

Yes, there is one gram of protein in one cup/30 grams of raw spinach.
In 28 grams of chicken there is 6 grams of protein, but this does NOT make it a better source of protein (see the info on protein quality at the end of my answer). And let's remember that that chicken also contains cholesterol and fat.
So, you should win the bet.Spinach DOES naturally contain protein, as do most (if not all?) vegetables and especially legumes. NutritonData.Com is the easiest source for nutrition info. Vegetables are an EXCELLENT source of protein.
Tell your brother to read this and he should lose the attitude about vegetarians and vegans. Research supports that a vegan diet is the healthiest diet you can do!
Now read this. It's from the professor of nutrition at Cornell(good enough credential?):
"Food proteins of the highest quality are, very simply, those that provide, upon digestion, the right kinds and amounts of amino acids needed to efficiently synthesize our new tissue proteins. This what that word QUALITY really means: it is the ability of food proteins to provide the right kinds and amounts of amino acids to make our new proteins.

Can you guess what food we might eat to most efficiently provide the building blocks for our replacement proteins? The answer is human flesh. Its protein has just the right amount of the needed amino acids. But while our fellow men and women are not for dinner, we do get the next "best" protein by eating other animals. The proteins of other animals are very similar to our proteins because they mostly have the right amount of each of the needed amino acids. These proteins can be used very efficiently and therefore are called HIGH QUALITY. Among animal foods, the proteins of milk and eggs represent the best amino acid matches for our proteins. and thus are considered the highest quailty. While the LOWER QUAIY plant proteins may be lacking in one or more of the essential amino acids, as a group they DO contain all of them. The concept of quality really means the efficiency with which food proteins are used to promote growth. This would be well and good if the greatest efficiency equaled the greatest health, but it doesn't, and that's why the terms of efficiency and quality are misleading. In fact, to give you a taste of what's to come [in his book, THE CHINA STUDY], there is a mountain of compelling research showing that low-quality plant protein, which allows for slow, but steady synthesis of new proteins, is the healthiest type of proteins. Slow but steady wins the race. The quality of protein found in a specific food is determined by seeing how fast animals would grow while consuming it. Some foods, namely those from animals. emerge with very high protein efficiency ratio and value.

This focus on efficiency of body growth, as if it were good health, encourages the consumption of proteins with the highest QUALITY. As any marketer will tell you, a product that is defined as being high quality instantly earns the trust of consumers. For well over 100 years we have been captive to this misleading language and have oftentimes made the unfortunate leap to thinking that more quality equals more health.

The basis for this concept of protein quality was not well known among the public, but its impact was - and still is- highly significant. People, for example, who choose to consume a plant-based diet will often ask, even today, WHERE DO I GET MY PROTEIN? as if plants don't have protein. Even if it is known that plants have protein, there is still the concern about its perceived poor quality. This has led people to believe that they must meticulously combine proteins from different plant sources during each meal so that they can mutually compensate for each other's amino acid deficits. However, this is overstating the case. We now know that through enormously complex metabolic system, the human body can derive all the essential amino acids frm the natural variety of plant proteins that we encounter every day. It doesn't require eating higher quantities of plant protein or meticulously planning every meal. Unfortunately, the enduring concept of protein quality has greatly obscured this information."

(excerpt from The China Study)

EDIT: What do you mean, "to live on?"
If you eat NOTHING else? This is getting silly.
If you only ate spinach and nothing else you would be lacking in other nutrients. If you ate other stuff to get other nutrients you would likely be getting protein from those foods, too. Your brother is an idiot. There is plenty of valid research done on vegetarian and vegan diets. If he's trying to prove you can't get enough protein without meat he is wrong, pure and simple.
That's just dumb. Some of the smartest people in the world are vegetarian BECAUSE THEY'VE DONE THE RESEARCH AND SEEN STUDY RESULTS AND KNOW HOW DEADLY ANIMAL PROTEINS ARE!!!

Answer 7

There is a very slight amount of protein in vegetables... on average, 2 grams for a half-cup serving (bigger serving if spinach is raw). By comaprison, 1 oz of meat has 7 gm protein.

Answer 8

You will need both for your daily intake i wood express just as good as the other person. Granta

Answer 9

Cooked spinach has 5 grams of protien so the raw spinach would have more.
http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/protein.htm

Answer 10

Yup. Calorie for calorie there's more protein in most veggies than meat.

Edit: Um you don't think a website that supports weightloss is going to have valid nutrition facts?? HELLO.