Spinach belongs to the chenopodiacee family. It originated in the Caucasus, Persia, and in neighbouring regions. It was introduced to Europe in the late 15th century but reached a remarkable diffusion only in the 19th century. It has an upright, hollow and tall up to one meter stem. In the first stages of life the plant has a dark green, bright and very tender rosette leaves often with bubbles. Flowers are greenish, male ones united in terminal ears and female ones instead grouped in glomerule. Fruit is a membranous-leathery achene, thorny or unarmed. Spinach is widely cultivated in central and northern regions of Italy and widely exported. Interestingly, pinach is one of the vegetables with the lowest iron content but there is a widespread misconception that it contains such a large quantity that sometimes eating spinach is suggested in case of anemia. It seems that this belief, repeatedly denied, was born as a result of a typing error on a nutritional label: instead of writing 3.4 mg every 100 g, it was written 34. This was plausibly before 1929, when the comic "Popeye" appeared.