Spinach-gate show us it's always worth making a complaint – however bizarre

Even a seemingly faceless, international agencies can be responsive and open to reform. And at The Independent, we welcome feedback from our readers

Re-heated spinach is not dangerous after all – and thanks to a eagle-eyed reader, official advice on the matter has been changed (Getty Images)

I love curry, though it brings out my very worst “eyes bigger than my tummy” characteristic. I cannot order an Indian takeaway without massively overdoing it, so that half an hour in I’m torn between the kind of gluttony that begets serious regret, and the prospect of next day scraps. But hey, what better than some saag aloo for breakfast?

The subject of reheating leftovers comes with all sorts of caveats these days (even putting aside the obvious impossibility of re-crisping a poppadum). Spinach in particular is the source of some quite feisty debate, with the Dutch said to be especially suspicious of it. In a recent news piece, based on advice from the Food Standards Agency and the European Food Information Council (EUFIC), we listed spinach among five items that were better binned than hotted up after a night in the fridge.

An eagle-eyed reader, however, was having none of it and complained via our online form. When we pointed him to EUFIC’s advice, he took up the challenge directly with the agency, explaining why he believed its arguments about spinach – and its supposed cancer-causing properties – were flawed.

In particular, he suggested that it was disproportionate to advise against reheating a generally beneficial foodstuff on the basis of a theoretical risk about the conversion of nitrate into nitrites and nitrosamines.

EUFIC, rather wonderfully, backed down and acknowledged that the advice was out of date and no longer reflected current recommendations from European authorities. It removed the content from its website and somewhere across the pond Popeye breathed a sigh of relief. In response to the change in official advice, we updated our story too.

This episode is excellent in many ways. Most obviously, it shows why we should all challenge information we believe is erroneous, even when it comes from an apparently impeccable source.

From The Independent’s point of view, there is no shame in receiving a complaint: if we ourselves have made an error, we want to know about it so we can set things right. It is for that reason we offer a straightforward means by which readers can alert us to problems. We actively welcome people getting in touch.

As things stand, The Independent remains currently outside the system of press self-regulation overseen by the Independent Press Standards Organisation. We still follow the industry-wide Editors’ Code of Practice, which IPSO oversees, in addition to our own Code. But in the absence of an external regulator, it is imperative that our in-house system for handling complaints is effective. We believe it is, but we have made a few changes to the process recently in an effort to streamline it further.

More broadly, spinach-gate ought also to encourage us in that it shows how even a seemingly faceless, international agency can be responsive and open to reform.

The EU referendum debate has encouraged a narrative in which pan-continental organisations are synonymous with bureaucratic torpor and red tape. In this case, EUPIC (which receives some of its funding from the European Commission) was admirably receptive to consumer feedback. Take note, Jean-Claude Juncker.

Best of all, though, the change of heart regarding the outrageous demonisation of reheated spinach provides a degree of relief that, among all the other things we can spend our time worrying out, warming up pre-cooked leafy greens isn’t among them. I’m pretty sure the anxiety was giving me an ulcer – or perhaps that’s just the pain from a surfeit of lamb jalfrezi.

Will Gore is deputy managing editor of The Independent and the London Evening Standard

To write to The Independent, please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk