Iron boosting tips
Would love some recipes or general food suggestions as ways to get iron levels a bit higher.
I have been supplementing already, but they actually decreased despite doing that (and yes, will be discussing this with doctors when I see them).
We do all absorb stuff differently from foods, so just share what has worked for you or someone you know!
@AffyAvo
Here's a link I found that has some stuff related to increasing iron.
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/increase-iron-absorption
A few things I'm seeing:
- Heme iron (from animal foods) is more easily absorbed than non-heme iron (from plant foods)
- Vitamin C, Vitamin A, and animal foods help improve iron absorption
- Foods rich in phytates or calcium can inhibit iron absorption... but my understanding (just from other things I've read) is that these foods are healthy for other reasons, so rather than avoiding them it's best to focus on eating other foods that boost iron absorption
@QuietMagic Thanks!
I have looked at some of the sources. I would love to hear though of snacks that people use to help improve their iron levels - grabbing some steak during a short break isn't typical.
Or someone who has a great lemon beef recipe to help get that iron absorbed from a good dinner.
@AffyAvo
I did an image search for "list of foods high in iron" and stumbled across a couple things. Seems like the most effective "snack" candidates would be fortified cereal, dark chocolate, and dried fruit. (There's a site I've been using called HappyForks where you can look up foods, adjust the quantity, and see what the nutritional info is for them.)
I'm vegan and I think I'm getting something like 200-300% DV of iron per day mostly just by eating tofu, dark chocolate, and potatoes. 😊 Kale is pretty broken as far as vitamins A and C are concerned.
@QuietMagic My good amount of chocolate and potato consumption doesn't seem to be enough for my iron levels 😝, as someone who eats meat, tofu is not something I regularly eat, although it gets added to the very occasional meal.
It's pumpkin season, maybe that will help a bit, pumpkin seeds are delicious. It's been a while since I made kale chips, guess it's time to do that again too.
I appreciate the suggestions!
@QuietMagic Every time I see dried fruit in one of these lists, I chuckle. Some journalists seem to think that drying an apricot, or a bean, somehow makes it contain more iron. Of course the dried form is inedible, and restoring the water content reduces the percentage of iron to what it was before the thing was dried.
A more subtle problem that you noted earlier is that iron in plants is chemically bound in a way that means not all of it is available for humans to extract. The most notorious example is spinach. The plant contains a lot of iron because it's efficient at binding the iron it gets from the soil, but that same efficiency means the iron can't be released in your gut. See: The chemistry of spinach
I've even seen it suggested (although I can't find a link now) that spinach can "steal" iron from other foods in the same meal, leaving you with less available iron than you would have had without the spinach. However, this could well be another journalistic fallacy like the dried apricot one.
I found a good, but rather old, scientific overview here: Iron Absorption. This suggests that iron is absorbed fairly quickly after eating. Vitamin C (ascorbate) and citrus fruit (citrate) are helpful. Zinc, tea and antacids are unhelpful, but would be OK after an iron-containing meal has had time to be digested. Plant-based foods that bind iron strongly are not as good as they seem from their raw iron content. Meat bypasses all the complications of plant-based foods.
I found more information about phytic acid here: Reduction of phytic acid and enhancement of bioavailable micronutrients in food grains. This suggests that the iron actually available from seeds and cereals depends a lot on how these foods are prepared, because some of the phytate can be removed.
Unfortunately I like spinach but I don't like beef jerky or pepperoni, so I don't know what to recommend. As I'm thinking of getting an induction hob, I was interested in: Food prepared in iron cooking pots as an intervention for reducing iron deficiency anaemia…
Charlie
@RarelyCharlie
I have to admit I was a bit surprised to see dried fruit listed. 😊 That makes sense if there's some kind of volume/weight thing going on that's skewing things where it's like, "If you eat 10x as much of this as people normally eat, there's a fair amount of iron." I think that's probably why I mentioned HappyForks for looking up
specific foods since at least the couple of dried fruits I
sometimes eat didn't have much iron when I checked.
@RarelyCharlie I might consider an iron fish, cheaper than replacing pots. My husband doesn't need to increase his iron intake though, so that would reduce how much it gets used.
@AffyAvo
Are you looking for things like snack recipes to increase iron? This is a no-bake apple bites snack (with apples, oats, raisins and peanut butter).
Let me know if this is the type thing that you are asking for and I'll share some more.
https://mykidslickthebowl.com/apple-oat-no-bake-bites/
~ Sher
@Sher217 Yes that's the type of thing I'm looking for and that sounds delicious too! Thanks!
@AffyAvo
Oh good! I'll check to see if have any others and share.
~Sher
~ Sher