#46: Eat Your Vegetables

Popeye the Sailor debuted in 1929 and became a staple of Depression-era entertainment. Surprisingly, the famous cartoon character became synonymous with spinach. Eating spinach gave Popeye superhuman powers, which is a not-so-subtle way of promoting vegetable consumption. But why? It’s widely believed that E.C. Segar, the creator of Popeye, chose spinach because of a misplaced decimal point over-reporting the iron value in spinach.

However, that theory has been debunked. People know the true iron content of spinach back in the 1930s. It seems that Segar chose spinach as a simple way to promote healthy eating among children. Many Americans weren’t getting their necessary vitamins and minerals. Popeye was an obvious way to remind everyone to eat their veggies!