what's so different about them?!

August 16, 2009 4:22 PM

Why is basil considered to be an herb, but spinach is a vegetable?

i was cooking, and saw them side-by-side, and got to thinking. here's my basic line of thought...

1) basil (and most other herbs) are leafs.
2) spinach is a leaf.
3) basil=herb. spinach=veggie.
4) WTF!!!

thanks.

posted by chicago2penn to food & drink (21 comments total)

I'm curious about the actual answer, but I would guess that it's because basil is more fragrant than spinach. Herbs are usually used to add flavour rather than be a base for other flavours.
posted by Dr. Send at 4:24 PM on August 16

Herb is for flavor, spinach is fer eatin'.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 4:29 PM on August 16 [2 favorites has favorites]

According to the USDA, they're both just plants. You can call them what you please, really.
posted by Burhanistan at 4:48 PM on August 16

As kuujjuarapik says, flavour and other properties define herbs (whether medicinal or culinary) in the narrow sense of the word:

* "[herbs] are valued for their flavor, fragrance, medicinal and healthful qualities, economic and industrial uses, pesticidal properties, and coloring materials (dyes)." (Herb Society)

* "Commonly, 'herb' refers to any plant or plant part valued for its medicinal,
savory, or aromatic qualities. In many cases, herbs' oils and compounds that
cause healing, good flavors, or aromas, are merely adaptations that help the
particular plant survive in its environment." (Ag and Natl Resources, Univ. of Calif.)
posted by mmw at 4:49 PM on August 16

Well, they're both hebaceous plants.

But when you're talking about culinary herbs, it has to do with flavor or aroma. Basil is used as a flavoring agent, and almost never as the bulk of a dish. Spinach is almost never used as a flavoring agent as it's just not strong enough. If you want something to taste like spinach, you wind up using spinach as one of the primary ingredients.

So you might make a spinach salad and mix in two chopped leaves of basil for flavor. You're unlikely to make a soup and then decide, "You know, what this needs is two leaves of spinach". You probably wouldn't even taste the spinach.
posted by Netzapper at 4:49 PM on August 16 [1 favorite has favorites]

Do you shred up spinach and add it to dishes for flavor? Do you dry spinach to add it to sauces? I sure don't.
posted by Dmenet at 4:51 PM on August 16

Just nthing what the other people have said: herbs are herbs because they're used in relatively small amounts to add flavor and fragrance (and sometimes color, etc.) rather than to be eaten as a food in and of itself.
posted by asciident at 5:06 PM on August 16

Perhaps unrelated to which is considered what, but adding spinach to all of your meals is probably a bad idea, as it contains oxalates that chelate a significant portion of the dietary minerals, preventing absorption by the GI tract.
posted by zentrification at 5:58 PM on August 16

To nth and summarize with a perhaps cloying metaphor:

"Herb" and "vegetable" aren't biological terms, but roles that a food plays in a cuisine, like "leading man" and "character actor" are types of roles that an actor plays in a film.

For extra credit, the distinction between herb and spice, while consistent, seems much more arbitrary to me.
posted by sesquipedalian at 6:32 PM on August 16

To answer your question experimentally, try a basil salad.
posted by _dario at 6:33 PM on August 16 [1 favorite has favorites]

Exception to the basil-as-flavor-not-primary ingredient rule: pesto.
posted by FelliniBlank at 6:57 PM on August 16

Off topic sorta but...

I use basil like lettuce in sandwiches. Yum!
posted by ian1977 at 7:01 PM on August 16

adding spinach to all of your meals is probably a bad idea, as it contains oxalates that chelate a significant portion of the dietary minerals, preventing absorption by the GI tract.

Do you have a cite for that, zentrification? It runs counter to what I've heard/read in the past from nutritionists and doctors about the valuable minerals spinach adds to my diet, so I'd love to know where you're getting that info. Thanks!
posted by mediareport at 7:34 PM on August 16

It's a matter of quantity. You usually eat enough spinach at a time to qualify as a serving of vegetables. Not so with basil. (Arugula is just confusing.)

Also, to shout back at sesquipedalian, an herb usually refers to the leafy part of a plant, while a spice is from ground seeds, bark, roots, etc.

Also also, I believe what zentrification is referring to is the oxalic acid in spinach that can interfere with the absorption of the calcium in that spinach. (I can't squeeze cooked spinach dry with my bare hands as it makes them itch mercilessly.) Here is more info.
posted by zinfandel at 8:51 PM on August 16

Exception to the basil-as-flavor-not-primary ingredient rule: pesto.

Yeah, but only crazy people eat pesto on its own or as the main ingredient in any dish. Hence basil remains a flavoring agent, aka an herb.
posted by CunningLinguist at 9:02 PM on August 16

Oxalates are a form of oxalic acid, which are known to chelate the various metal ions we know as essential dietary minerals (calcium, magnesium, iron, zinc, manganese etc).

There is sufficient oxalate in spinach to chelate all the calcium. This paper talks a bit more about oxalic acid toxicity and has some data on oxalic acid presence in various vegetables.

While spinach has a lot of calcium and iron, only about 5-15% is absorbed in non-deficient individuals.
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/47/4/707
http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/abstract/44/3/383
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=912092

So, using the wikipedia info for 3.5oz of raw spinach
iron - 15% of 2.7mg iron (22% rda) = 0.405mg or 3.3% rda
calcium - 15% of 99mg calcium (10% rda) = 14.85mg or 1.5% rda

spinach apologists will tell you it's not true, and cite studies showing deficient subjects to absorb calcium/iron/magnesium from spinach just fine. But it's irrelevant to the discussion, deficient subjects absorb minerals from all sorts of shitty sources that have poor bioavailability in healthy individuals, magnesium oxide is a great example.
posted by zentrification at 10:54 PM on August 16

Herbs ALWAYS have a high level of UNIQUE aromatic oil content in the leaf. Herbs are generally resinous as a result of their high and chemically unique oil content. Thats the laymans explanation. There are chemical parallels among herbs too. Herbs are typically the leaf portion of the plant. Spice comes typically from parts other than the leaf and can also commonly be characterized as having unique aromatic oil content. Leaves without high levels of aromatic oil content would typically be characterized as other than an herb. For example: spinach. Herb being common parlance for leaves exhibiting HIGH aromatic oil content a quality spinach does not have.
posted by Muirwylde at 12:51 AM on August 17 [3 favorites has favorites]

...and spinach is pretty commonly known to be a 'table green' never an herb but you can call a 'table green' an 'herb' if you choose to....just expect to cause confusion and don't expect understanding or agreement from any culinary authority since this is essentially a culinary as opposed to botanical argument though the foundation of the argument is rooted in botany.
posted by Muirwylde at 12:59 AM on August 17

Two of your links contradict each other, zentrification:

That goes for iron also, so spinach is not a good source of iron (Popeye to the contrary) because the iron is tightly bound to oxalate and therefore not available for the body’s use.

and

Since this percentage [13%] compares favorably with the percentage of iron absorbed from diets composed of a wide variety of foods, and since the iron content of spinach is higher than that of a majority of foods, spinach may be regarded as a valuable source of iron for young women.

Science is so difficult sometimes. That last link seems to be saying that the "only about 5-15%" absorption rate, in this case 13%, is actually pretty damn good, because 13% of a fuckofalotofiron is better than greater than 13% of notmuchironreally.

But anyway, I thought you were asserting that spinach interferes with the absorption of minerals from other foods. That's not what the evidence in your links states. Even after going through them, I feel pretty good about eating spinach, along with other veggies, multiple times a week.
posted by mediareport at 5:17 PM on August 17

Spinach may or may not interfere with the absorption of minerals from other foods, depends how the oxalic acid binds.

The 970mg or so of oxalic acid (molecular weight 90) in 100 grams of spinach binds the 99mg of calcium and 2.7 mg of iron easily, only using up about 226.3 mg of oxalic acid. The remaining 740 mg or so are sufficient to chelate all the other minerals (magnesium, phosphorus, sodium, zinc) except for the potassium. If the oxalic acid does not chelate all the minerals in the spinach, it will probably bind with high affinity to any calcium and iron you've ingested.

I happen to disagree with the authors, 13% of 2.7 mg of iron is 0.351 mg per 100g of spinach. Only 1.42 kilograms of spinach to absorb 5mg of iron....

The authors of the papers happen to disagree on their conclusions, but the data is still the same, significantly lower iron and calcium absorption in the presence of oxalates, draw your own conclusions...
posted by zentrification at 6:33 PM on August 17

Perhaps unrelated to which is considered what, but adding spinach to all of your meals is probably a bad idea, as it contains oxalates that chelate a significant portion of the dietary minerals, preventing absorption by the GI tract.

Wow, who would suspect the existence of anti-spinach polemics? But one concludes this exists in opposition to the frightening specter of the spinach apologia. And here, I just thought spinach made for good eats.

It seems likely that all those people who eat spinach at every single meal are going to be in trouble. I wonder if we might consider other foods bad to eat at every meal?
posted by ViolaGrinder at 5:03 PM on August 18