What is the difference between baby spinach and spinach?

Answer 1

The dark-green leaf vegetable is spinach. Both spinich and spinage are frequent misspellings.

The pronunciation is (spin-ich) which is also mispronounced as (spin-ij).

Answer 2

Perpetual spinach is actually a biennial member of the beet family(beta vulgaris) which is also known as chard. The leaves can be used on a "cut and come again" basis throughout the season and over winter. It grows low to the ground with individual crinkley leaves sprouting up from ground level with short thick stems. It is thought to derive from wild sea beets. It is related to beetroot(beet in the USA) except that there is no root swelling and only the leaves are eaten. Different cultivars of chard have stem colours ranging from white through green to red and purple.

In contrast, ordinary spinach(spinachia oleracea) is an annual plant growing around one foot high on a single stem and has dark green leaves branching off the stem. It can have crinkley(Savoy cultivar) or soft plain leaves and can be harvested when young or when mature before it goes to seed. It originated in Old Persia or modern day Iran.

Both are healthy additions to the diet, although they are both rather high in oxalic acid content which can interfere with the absorption of calcium and other minerals. The nutrient value (in terms of carotinoid antioxidants such as lutein and zeozanthine) appears to be much higher for ordinary spinach than for perpetual spinach from what I can glean from the USDA nutrition database.

Answer 3

Baby spinach contains more water so it's a little more tender. Best for salads. Regular spinach should be used for recipes where moisture is not needed, such as on Pizza or sauteed.