Daily iron on your dinner plate
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Iron Content of Quinoa

This food contains 1.4 milligrams of iron per 100 grams. Grams is a measure of weight. To put 100 grams in perspective, consider alternative measures for this food:

  • 1 cup equals 185 grams.

Quinoa is a dense enough grain that one cup is really quite a lot. You can certainly eat one cup of quinoa as a breakfast porridge, but you probably cannot eat much more than that.

In the category of grain, we included whole grains and flours in the Top 10 list. Foods may be fortified with iron but are not included in this Top 10 list. The food tested for the particular graph below can be described more specifically as:

Quinoa, cooked

Read more about iron in grains or visit our iron-rich foods list.

Quinoa As An Iron-Rich Food

Quinoa is a good source of dietary iron but it does contain iron inhibitors which will keep you from absorbing all of the iron. However, there are simple kitchen preparation techniques you can easily integrate into your kitchen routine to reduce the mineral inhibitors (namely “phytic acid”) and improve your iron absorption. If you are eating quinoa as a porridge or as part of a side-dish salad, you will want to soak the quinoa over night in very warm water to reduce the phytic acid.

If you are baking bread made from quinoa, your best bet is to use a sourdough recipe. Sourdough sounds tough but it really is fairly simple. We use a technique that does not even require us to prepare too far in advance of our baking. Read more on our iron rich foods tips page for details on reducing iron inhibitors in grains such as quinoa.