The cause? Iron deficiency.

Yes, IRONic even, as the author of this website on food iron.

As I struggle to crawl out of the pit, I realize more than ever some specific problems we may face as we try to get some of this important nutrient into our red blood cells where it belongs.

First, I am part of a growing demographic of the iron deficient: middle-aged overweight women. What researchers are beginning to realize is that the inflammation caused by our fat reduces our ability to get iron into our cells where it belongs.

Simply, being fat can aggravate (or even cause entirely) an iron deficiency.

So I sit here fluffy and iron deficient. If I can lose fat, I will solve my iron problem faster, but how in the heck can I lose fat if I am too exhausted to get off the couch?

The exhaustion associated with iron deficiency is epic, as you know well if you struggle with an iron deficiency. The idea of working out at the gym and on a calorie restricted diet is simply unrealistic. In my personal experience, we really need a more complex plan to solve our problem.

Weight Loss with an Iron Deficiency

First, losing weight really will help our battle. In one study on my little (or not so little) demographic, the weight loss solution the authors study is bariatric surgery. Bariatric surgery helped women lose weight, reduced the inflammation in their bodies, and actually positively impacted their iron status. (See the study.) Reducing inflammation also protected their hearts, brains, and really their entire bodies — all major diseases have some root in inflammation.

To clarify, I am not an advocate of bariatric surgery — it works for some people and it doesn’t work for others. For my purposes here, if there is any other way to lose, we ought to work on an alternative method. I would not judge anyone harshly (or even mildly) if they had such a surgery. You can find plenty of that judgment all over the Internet, so I figure that job is already overly-staffed.

The key point is that if we can reduce our fat, we will be at lower risk for coronary events, depression, and even iron deficiency.

The Problem of Exercising with an Iron Deficiency

To lose fat in order to solve our iron problem, we have an immediate dilemma: We don’t have energy and we can’t push ourselves through an exercise program.

If you find yourself trying to exercise and wonder what is wrong — why you can’t push yourself through your exercise set or even walk a little bit further — you really aren’t going crazy. Iron deficiency directly affects our physical performance, beyond simply being tired.

I live at the top of a hill and, for years, part of my regular exercise has been walking down to the main road and back up. The “back up the road” was only ever a problem when I was 39 weeks pregnant with snow on the ground. Even then, I worked it out. At the peak of my epic exhaustion from iron deficiency, I could not even push myself through the walk.

Do you know that feeling in an exercise program when you push through and then build up day after day? Depending on your circumstances, that strategy may simply not be possible for you when you are iron deficient. It wasn’t for me.

As I see it, we face two dilemmas:

• How do we get to the point at which we can exercise (even a little bit) so that we can work on weight loss?

• Are calorie restrictions for weight loss even appropriate for someone with a nutritional deficiency?

For my own circumstances, I wondered if I should begin a calorie-restricted diet first to begin to lose and, thereby, improve my iron. However, at least in my case, I would have to restrict calories a I decided on a whole lot to lose without exercising. It’s not a good long-term strategy, especially in light of a mineral deficiency. I decided on a different path, not unlike that investigated in a clinical trial.

From the study, researchers confirm that we are not going crazy, it IS more difficult for us to exercise if you are iron deficient:

Evidence from both animal and human studies suggests that marginal deficiency reduces endurance capacity. Moreover, findings from animal studies also suggest that iron deficiency may impair training adaptation. Findings from human studies examining this relation are equivocal.

The researchers did something pretty simple: They gave a group of the women in their study iron supplements, a control group was given a placebo. Within six weeks, those women taking iron supplements had better physical endurance. (See the study.)

The idea is pretty simple: If we can take the edge off the iron deficiency, we can exercise better, and maybe then actually succeed in a more serious exercise regimen and even a weight loss program.

Phase 1: Focus First on the Iron, then Hit the Exercise

A deficiency will take months to correct, if not a good bit longer. It depends in part of why you are deficient. If the causes are simply dietary, diet changes and supplements could correct it in three months or so — the time in which your body actually makes a whole new set of blood cells, something it works on every day.

Middle aged women like myself may have changes in their cycles as they march toward menopause. Cycles can get heavier, causing regular loss of a lot of blood. Some people have metabolic problems that may be affecting their iron absorption.

Assuming you can get in front of why you are deficient and begin to solve it, your next step is to get your iron levels up enough that you can actually exercise.

How to Improve Your Iron Status?

As I’ve faced this iron problem, I have become extra diligent with my diet, using the various strategies I outline in the Iron Rich Foods digital book. However, I also spent the first six weeks of my program pounding on the iron problem with an iron supplement. I’ve recommended a liquid iron supplement on this site which is vegetarian and well-tolerated by most people. That may be a good option for you, but it is not actually the tool I used.

(In fact, there could be a host of reasons why your case is unique which is why it is important to work with your doctor. I know a lot about food but I am not a medical professional and certainly you need one who knows your individual case.)

If you’ve explored this website, you know that the best food source of iron is red meat and, more specifically, liver. I have taken an insane amount of desiccated liver (here) to combat this deficiency and I am happy to report that I can walk down and then back up our little hill. I went on a five-mile bike ride in the foothills and didn’t even have to stop for a nap in the middle of it.

Take an iron supplement that works for you, but I’ll explain a little bit more why liver is my choice in this instance.

As I said, liver is an excellent source of iron. Furthermore, liver may give us some energy, over and above that we might expect from its nutrient profile. There was actually a study back in the 50s of mice fed liver and they were actually more energetic. The field of “liver eating research” didn’t really continue after that, but I do find from personal experience that I get an energy boost from liver. Eating it fresh is best for my energy but I simply cannot eat it week after week in a recovery program like this. It is not a sustainable choice for me — I get tired of it quickly. When I do tire of it, there is the desiccated liver. If you do eat it fresh, definitely buy only organic liver from a good source.

For my desiccated liver, I used a supplement sourced from Argentina. Argentine beef tends to be grass fed, making the supplement a good quality. Desiccated liver is de-fatted so some of the toxins you may find in this meat are lost with the fat removal. I use a brand whose market is weight lifters hoping to dose a whole lot of iron as part of their muscle-building program. These guys take insane amounts of iron in their training — the supplement they use is perfect for me as well. It is priced for mega-dosing. (Also perfect.)

The best deal on the supplement is at either Amazon or Vitacost (considering shipping is free), priced at about $40 for 500 tablets. (Here at Amazon or at Vitacost.) The Vitacost deal is best if you buy something else and qualify for free shipping. I receive mine in two days. Amazon may work better for you. (Both of those links are referral links and this site receives a small commission if you buy from those vendors.)

In my regimen, I took a whopping 18 tablets a day (6 tablets 3 times a day) for three weeks, all before about 2 p.m. In my experience, liver tablets give me energy in a good way but they can also disturb my sleep if I take them too late in the day.

After three weeks, I reduced my intake to 12 tablets a day, still a whole lot of desiccated liver.

In the first month, I used nearly a whole bottle of those liver tablets I linked to above, for a cost of $41. Taking 12 a day, the cost is about $30 per month.

This is a fairly inexpensive intervention in the grand scheme of things.

After six weeks of this I was able to take that walk and bike ride that I mentioned above.

Phase 2: Once You Can Exercise, Begin Your Weight Loss

Phase 1 was actually pretty easy: pop pills. I am now in the difficult and yet great phase of having enough energy to move my body. The weight loss program begins.

I am not a weight loss guru by any means. If you have a program that works for you, this would be the time to employ it. Based on my life-long experience with weight loss, I have the old-fashioned view that calorie reduction and added exercise is my best strategy. I don’t go on fad diets or restrict my diet completely to a single food group — the old-fashioned method works for me.

I do find that a “diet” takes a good bit of focus and energy — I have to make a lot of room in my life for my dieting. I don’t start one in the middle of a life crisis or life change. I reduce my work schedule as well.

As I begin the dieting and exercise phase, I continue to take the desiccated liver. It gives me iron but, as I mentioned, it seems to give me an additional energy boost. On a calorie-restricted diet, you need any energy boost you can get, especially if you are still teetering on the edge of an iron deficiency. The desiccated liver helps. Your other iron supplement of choice may help as well.

At this point, I’d love to report that I lost 50 pounds (or more!) and that it was all marvelously easy. As it is, I just rode a bike 5 miles in the foothills and walked up a hill, so I cling to that short-term success. I’m now ready for the rest and I will report back. (That’s my car cruising around central California as I hope to grab a bit of exercise.)

If you have comments or suggestions on any phase of our physical transformations, please leave it here.

With spring and summer gardens teaming with produce, more people have been interested in mineral inhibitors in vegetables. Last month I posted about the mineral inhibitor oxalic acid. The article is on the calcium site but the discussion applies equally to iron. Oxalic acid binds to minerals and reduces your absorption of both iron and calcium. Oxalic acid is also implicated in kidney stones. Garden greens tend to have high levels of this iron-binding substance.

We were interested in oxalic acid this spring because of our obsession with green soup (an obsession that lives on since I just had a bowl for breakfast). The greens we used were high in oxalic acid and based on research presented in the article, we chose to boil them first and discard the boiling water. A good portion of the oxalic acid is moved to the boiling water and then is discarded. Certainly, some of the benefits of the greens got poured out along with the oxalic acid, but we were eating so much of it we thought it wise to prevent kidney stones.

Out of the discussion came the question: “Does Fermentation Reduce Oxalic Acid in Food?”

First, this is not a question over which there are legions of food science dissertations. There simply is not a lot of literature on home fermentation.

However, there is a nice little article that suggests fermentation is a great strategy to reduce oxalic acid. A 2005 study of carrot juice examined the soluble iron in fermented and unfermented juice and found the fermented carrot juice to be up to 30 times more absorbed than unfermented juice. The authors argue that it is the reduction in metal chelators (phytic acid and oxalic acid) that drives the change in availability of iron. They actually test for phytic acid and show that it is completely removed with fermentation. Carrots are known high oxalate foods and it is likely that removal of oxalates drives much of this added iron availability.

As a result, the evidence suggests that both fermentation and boiling are fairly effective strategies to reduce oxalic acid in your food. Of course, the key benefit of fermentation is that the food can stay raw, giving you all of the benefits of rawness with the mineral binders.

Should You Worry Or Bother?

The oxalic acid obsession is most important for people relying on oxalate foods for their mineral content or people prone to kidney stones. We took care to reduce oxalic acid in our green soups because we were making gallons of concentrated greenness. Some people have raw green smoothies every day with no issue at all. If that is you — fantastic. There is so much goodness in greens any way that you prepare them, that we all really need to find more ways to eat them that meet our own specific circumstances. Fermentation is just one possibility.

How Do You Ferment Vegetable Juice or Vegetables?

You can ferment your juice or vegetables using a vegetable starter like Caldwell, saving a start from your first batch to inoculate subsequent batches.

You could ferment using whey as a starter. Many people have great success with whey. It is simple and worth a try. I don’t care for the ferments from whey personally.

For vegetable juice, I typically use a water kefir method using first ferment water kefir added to the vegetable juice in a process I describe here using fruit juice instead. It works well for vegetable juice too. I keep water kefir going regularly and so this is the best option in my home.

That said, I would drink high oxalate juice unfermented — I am not a slave to this method. If I were drinking it daily, I would ferment at least some of it, just as I boiled lambs quarters for our green soups. Your mileage may vary — you may need none of these methods, you may be so prone to kidney stones that you choose to avoid these foods entirely.

That said, there is some confusion about iron inhibitors — how much iron they inhibit, how bad these foods are for us to eat. The best way to think about inhibitors is to divide them into two groups: (1) Foods that contain inhibitors with little iron themselves and (2) foods with inhibitors that are also loaded with iron (iron that happens to be “locked up” in the food by the inhibitors).

Low Iron Foods With Iron Inhibitors

This category of food contains primarily beverages: milk, coffee, black tea, and red wine. These beverages typically offer minimal iron but will actually inhibit your absorption of iron in foods you eat in the same meal. Breakfast cereal is a great example: many cereal manufacturers pack your processed breakfast cereal with fortified iron because the milk you pour over it will inhibit some of that iron.

For this group of inhibitors, it is best to avoid consuming them with your iron-rich meal. I realize you are not going to give up your coffee, but you can plan an iron-rich dinner well after your early afternoon cup of coffee. You may also rely on milk for calcium like I do. If you are like me, drink the milk a couple of hours before or after your iron-rich meal. I give my son warm milk at night as a sleep aid and a calcium boost rolled into one.

High Iron Foods With Iron Inhibitors

In this category, we have high iron classics: spinach, soybeans, and corn. The iron in vegetables is blocked primarily by oxalic acid. Phytic acid is the culprit in grains, legumes, nut, and seeds. These foods tend to have enough iron that even with these iron blockers, you will still get iron out of them. They are also not so sinister that they will rob iron out of your body. I would not be afraid to eat these foods, I would just take care to prepare them to reduce their iron inhibitors. How you prepare each of these foods depends on the inhibitor.

Preparing Grains, Legumes, Nuts, and Seeds to Reduce Phytic Acid

The best way to reduce phytic acid in food comes down to one word: soak and ferment. If you place the food in warm water for hours (or even for a day), the content of phytic acid will decrease or may disappear entirely. There are some exceptions for which it is difficult to remove the phytic acid (notably, soy and corn which I will leave to other discussions). For much of the rest of the food world, you can improve the phytic acid reduction by soaking a ground version of the food (cracked or ground grains, chopped nuts). You can also improve your iron absorption by eating these foods with high vitamin C foods such as tomatoes, peppers, and oranges. There are more tricks to improving your iron absorption from high phytic acid food that I will add to this website. The tricks and exceptions are described in detail in my digital books on iron rich foods and phytic acid.

Vegetables High in Oxalic Acid

For vegetables high in oxalic acid, your best strategy is to boil them and discard the boiling water. (I describe the research in more detail here as it relates to calcium but it applies to iron as well.) Eating foods high in vitamin C along with your vegetables may help as well, especially if you are boiling all of the vitamin C out of your spinach.

I get some flack from spinach lovers over this point and the fact is that I am a big fan of raw spinach salads but if you need the spinach for iron, your best strategy is to boil it and eat it mushy. (I know.)

Avoid Iron Inhibitors?

In general, I do not avoid foods just because they contain iron inhibitors. I am enjoying a cup of black tea as I write. However, at the times in my life when I have found myself iron deficient, I do take more care in planning my meals and avoiding iron-inhibiting foods if I cannot prepare them to reduce their phytic acid and oxalic acid. On a daily basis, I prepare much of my high phytic acid food to reduce the phytic acid. The strategies are fairly simple and, ultimately, they reduce my cooking time. It is less of a kitchen obsession than it is a regular routine.

In data collected by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), small vegetables and fruit have declined in iron, calcium, phosphorus, riboflavin, vitamin C, and protein since the 1950s.

Scientists began to notice the trend in the 1980s, a trend that has since been examined in published studies, most notably a series of papers out of the University of Texas at Austin. (Read it here.)

Spinach, washed, pre-cut, and bagged at a grocery store is not your grandmother’s spinach and not just because of its plastic zip lock bag. The spinach is less nourishing as well.

In data housed on the Traditional Foods site, you can explore changes in other foods. Chinese cabbage, cantaloupe, carrots, cauliflower, collard greens, cucumber, honeydew melons, mustard greens, onions, radishes, rhubarb, strawberries, tomato, turnips, and turnip greens all show declines in iron content. These changes in the iron content of individual foods are not statistically significant by themselves but, taken together, they suggest a decline in iron content.

On top of reduced iron, many of these same foods have less vitamin C as well. Vitamin C is an important part of an iron rich diet because it actually helps your body absorb more of the iron in your food. Tomatoes and cantaloupe are popular vitamin C foods and great companions to grain salads and breakfast menus. These popular foods have declined in both iron and vitamin C, making that uphill climb against iron deficiency a bit more strenuous.

Why A Decline? A Trend Toward Commercialized Produce

The most comprehensive study of these data examines possible reasons for the decline in nutritional content of food — soil depletion and changes in the seeds themselves.

Soil depletion is a compelling explanation for the nutrient decline. The idea is that commercial growers have become dependent on fertilizers that focus on nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (NPK) rather than the whole spectrum of soil nutrients. This has led to deficient soil. Deficient soil creates deficient vegetables. As a gardener myself, I can certainly see a relationship between the health of our soil and the productivity of the garden. This explanation is compelling but researchers point out that protein (from nitrogen) and phosphorus have both declined in these garden crops even though these nutrients are used in commercial fertilizers.

It appears that blame lies with the cultivation of commercial crop varieties that promote high yield and pest resistant plants. When seeds are cultivated to develop a certain trait in the plant (such as yield), other traits may suffer (such as nutrient content). The authors give the example of Marathon broccoli, the type of broccoli commonly available in stores these days. The broccoli head is much larger than heirloom broccoli but any one head has about the same amount of calcium and iron as an heirloom head of broccoli. The minerals get spread throughout the entire large head, leaving a lower mineral content in any one bite of broccoli. You need to eat more bites to get as much iron as calcium as you would have from grandma’s garden.

Buy Heirloom Produce

In response to this trend of nutrient decline in produce, one action you can take right now is to find sources of heirloom vegetables, especially vegetables that are staples in your household.

Farmer’s markets are your best bet — simply ask the farmer if the crop is an heirloom. You will find some heirloom items in your local health food store as well. The added benefit is that heirlooms tend to have more flavor and often look a bit more interesting than their commercial counterparts.

Grow Heirloom Produce

Join the growing trend in home gardening and grow your own heirloom fruits and vegetables. On the Traditional Foods site, we have created resources to help you get started in building your soil, composting, buying and saving seed, choosing a location, and knowing your seasons.

Select seed that is open-pollinated, indicated by “OP” on the label. Hybrid seeds are marked F1. Grow your crops is well-composted soil so that the plants will be as prolific as possible and will provide you with nutrient dense produce.

Soaking beans will reduce phytic acid and your beans will cook faster. Ideally, you will plan to cook beans the day before, soak them over night, and have them cooking for lunch or dinner.

Phytic Acid in Food and Iron Absorption

As inspiration that reducing phytic acid in food, check out the results of a study on grains. Food scientists removed phytic acid from wheat, oats, corn, and rice and saw an increase in iron absorption of between 300% and 1100%. On the low end of the scale, you triple your iron by reducing phytic acid. Of course, you probably will not reduce the phytic acid in your beans to zero in your kitchen, but you can certainly make a dent in it.

Soaking Beans to Reduce Phytic Acid

If you read nothing else, here is your take-home:

Soak your beans overnight in warm water.

Below you can explore results from food science on time and temperature, but if you can set up a system in your kitchen in which your beans are soaking over night (or even for 24 hours) in warm water, you are ahead of the game. Your beans will provide you with more iron and they will cook more quickly.

Before getting to the nitty-gritty, I have gotten a lot of questions over the years about beans, particularly from people who forgot to soak them and did not know what to do. Some people have turned to canned beans because they are lower in phytic acid. It is true that the canning process lowers phytic acid but as a whole foods bean-lover myself, my problem with canned beans is the canned part. For my part, I would cook the beans without having soaked them in a pinch. (Though in much of a pinch you will probably need a pressure cooker to do so.) The purpose of this article is not to make you a slave to soaking or to getting phytic acid as close to zero as possible, but to suggest you implement this very simple kitchen strategy into your everyday cooking to improve your iron absorption.

Effectiveness of Soaking Beans

One interesting study examined the retention of phytic acid in three different beans after soaking for 18 hours at room temperature. Great northern beans maintained 30% of their original phytic acid content, pinto beans 47% and kidney beans 48%. These results are better than cooking alone and better than germinating beans. Soaking is a good strategy. However, we can do even better.

There was a great little study that varied the temperature of the soaking water and found that soaking beans in warmer water was more effective. The optimum temperature in the study was 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

That is quite warm for most of our kitchens. Some people have managed this in a crockpot with success; others have probably gotten close to this under a pilot in their oven. Some people have reported that their beans have begun to ferment spontaneously. I thought that was really cool but if soured beans are not what you are going for, you could get far too much funk for your own preference.

My Method

The method I use in my kitchen is extremely simple and should work for everyone. I put my beans in a large stainless steel bowl and add extremely warm water — probably about 140 degrees. I never measure the temperature, but it is warm without burning my hands. I achieve the temperature by warming some water in a tea kettle and adding that hot water plus cool water from the tap to the bowl of beans. As the beans take in water and as the water cools in the bowl, I add more warm water. From there, I do not worry about the beans, water, or temperature. I just let them soak. I start the beans the night before either lunch or dinner the next day.

You might want to play with maintaining a higher temperature, particularly if you need the iron but using my method is certainly far better than nothing.

Ideally, you will pair your beans with vitamin C foods as well such as the bean salad pictured above. The tomato and cucumber will help you absorb more iron and, of course, they happen to taste great too.

• Weakness
• Fatigue
• Reduced color in the face (a pale look)
• Heart palpitations
• Cold hands and feet
• Tingling hands and feet
• Pica (craving unusual items like ice, salt, and clay)
• Brittle fingernails (flattened and then turned up on the corners, like “spoons”)

As with any condition, you may not display all of these symptoms. (In fact, you may have a few other unusual symptoms instead.) If you are concerned that you are iron deficient, the easiest thing to do is ask your doctor to order blood work.

In Children

The iron status of infants and young children is watched carefully by pediatricians in the United States because of the impact of iron on a child’s physical growth and brain development. If your child displays iron deficiency symptoms, do speak with your child’s doctor immediately.

Iron deficiency symptoms in children include:

• Slow growth rate in stature. A child may be small for his or her age but if his or her rate of growth is below children of the same age, doctors may become concerned. That is, if the child is expected to grow three inches in a year but only grows by one inch in height, the pediatrician may order follow-up tests.

• Slow weight gain. As with a child’s change in stature, children should gain weight within an expected range. If a child is expected to gain seven pounds in one year and gains only one pound, the child’s pediatrician may order iron blood work (or other tests depending on the child’s history).
• Reduced school performance. Iron is an important mineral for brain function and is critical in a child’s performance at school. If a child suffers from low iron and that iron status is improved, so too may his or her school performance.
• Poor behavior. As with school performance, a child’s behavior is affected by his or her iron status. The iron-deficient child may be hyperactive or show signs of attention deficit.

Talk to you child’s pediatrician about iron blood work if you are concerned about the child’s iron status. Iron deficiency is common and if your child is displaying any of these symptoms, bring up the issue at your next doctor’s appointment.

Meats

Meats are great sources of food iron because they tend to be high in iron (particularly red meat such as beef) but they also do not suffer from the iron inhibitors present in grains, beans, nuts, and seeds. Note that several types of animal liver top the list of iron foods and these same foods may be at the top of your “unpalatable” list during pregnancy. It happens to the best of us. However, you should also be cautious about liver in pregnancy. It is high in vitamin A and unless you have a known vitamin A deficiency, you probably do not want to consume too much. High levels of vitamin A during pregnancy can harm your growing baby. Luckily, there are many other meats to choose from. Read more about iron in meat.

Grains

Grains are a great comfort food in pregnancy and many women palate grains very easily. The bran of the grain tends to be highest in iron, but the bran is also highest in an iron inhibitor called phytic acid. Alternative grains such as quinoa, teff, and amaranth are high in iron as well but also do have phytic acid. Enjoy grains in your pregnancy diet but if you rely on them for iron, you must read our tips and tricks page to increase your absorption of their iron content.

Beans

Beans are also high in iron but, like grains, they do contain phytic acid and that phytic acid will keep your from absorbing much of the iron in the beans. In fact, at the top of the list is soybeans and soybeans are notoriously high in phytic acid. Worse yet, you can soak and soak those soybeans and never reduce the phytic acid content. Fermented soy such as miso or tempeh is your best bet.

Nuts And Seeds

Nuts and seeds can be a great pregnancy snack but they do contain phytic acid as well. For the most part, we recommend soaking your nuts and seeds to reduce the phytic acid content, a process that is somewhat effective. It is probably best to rely on a combination of food for iron, not just on nuts and seeds. You can often find artisan sourdough breads that include nut flours. These may be good, creative options for you since a sourdough preparation does reduce the iron inhibitors in the nut flours.

Vegetables

Vegetables as a class are generally a poor source of iron; there really are no high iron vegetables. In fact, from our food list, you would have to eat large quantities of those vegetables to pack a punch. For vegetables, focus on those that are high in vitamin C, such as tomatoes and bell pepper. The vitamin C in the vegetables will actually help your body absorb more iron in your grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds, making them great supporters of an iron-rich pregnancy.

Fruits

Like vegetables, there really are no iron rich fruits, but fruits tend to be high in vitamin C content and can play an important role in iron metabolism as a result. If you have little or no meat in your diet, high vitamin C fruit will be an important strategy for you to improve your iron absorption.

Pregnancy is a tough time and you need to find a meal plan that works for you and your family. Explore the resources here, consider what you can actually palate, and put together a creative high iron diet.

Meats

Meats are one of the few food types without iron inhibitors. Meat, particularly red meat, also tends to be very high in iron. We present the top meats in the figure at right. Note that if you are pregnant, liver is quite high in vitamin A and unless you have a known vitamin A deficiency, you can consume too much vitamin A in a pregnancy diet and that fat-soluble vitamin can be harmful to the baby. Read more about iron in meat.

Grains

Grains can be great sources of iron, but they do have a powerful iron inhibitor called phytic acid which does decrease your absorption of iron. For the most part, the bran of the grain will have a higher content of iron (and of phytic acid). In addition, some alternative grains such as amaranth, teff, and quinoa are very good options. If you rely on grains (and beans) for iron, you must take measures in preparing your food to reduce the phytic acid content. Read more about our tips and tricks to improve your digestion of iron from grains.

Beans

Like grains, beans can be great sources of iron if they are prepared properly. They contain phytic acid which blocks your uptake of iron, but that phytic acid can be reduced by soaking your beans overnight in very warm water before you cook them. Soybeans top the iron-rich list, but we should warn you that soybeans are very high in phytic acid and, in fact, the phytic acid is difficult to remove. You really need to consume fermented soy such as tempeh and miso to benefit from the iron content. Read our tips and tricks page for more on these iron rich foods.

Nuts and Seeds

Nuts and seeds also contain phytic acid which does reduce your absorption of iron. We do recommend soaking them to reduce the phytic acid content but soaking is not as effective as we might hope. It is probably best to rely on a combination of food for iron, not just on nuts and seeds. However, soaking sesame seeds and sunflower seeds and adding them liberally to your recipes could be a great strategy. Increasingly, artisan sourdough breads are available that make use of nuts and seeds. These are also good options.

Vegetables

Vegetables as a class are generally a poor source of iron; there really are no iron rich vegetables. Furthermore, if you eat your vegetables with iron inhibitors such as those common in grains and beans, you will likely not benefit from the iron in vegetables at all. To get the most out of your vegetables, explore the resources on this site about reducing iron inhibitors, particularly our tips and tricks page.

Fruits

Like vegetables, there really are no iron rich fruits, but fruits with their high vitamin C content can play an important role in iron metabolism for people who do not have large amounts of iron in their diet. In the case of fruit, your best bet for iron metabolism is to focus on fruit high in vitamin C such as citrus fruit or tomato.

Examine these food groups and create your own iron rich foods list that will work for you in your own kitchen and meet your family’s own needs.

Tip #1: Soak Your Beans Overnight

You may have heard that beans, a non-heme source of iron, have iron inhibitors that limit your absorption of iron from the beans. In fact, you will probably only absorb about one-third of the iron in non-heme sources like beans compared to heme sources like meat. However, you can reduce iron inhibitors by soaking beans overnight in warm water. You can read more here about soaking beans but you basically start with water above body temperature, put your beans in a pot or bowl, cover them with the warm water, and set them in a warm place overnight. This simple step will help you absorb more of the iron in the beans.

Tip #2: Eat It With Bell Pepper And Tomato

Those beans will be better absorbed still if you eat them along with a high vitamin C food such as bell pepper or tomato. A fruit-based dessert made from a high vitamin C food such as papaya or mango is a good option too.

Tip #3: Eat Sourdough Bread

Sourdough bread is tasty and it actually makes use of a process that reduces iron inhibitors in your grain. Sourdough baking makes use of the principles outlined on this website that reduce iron inhibitors in grains: Moisture + Temperature + Time. Your grain in a sourdough recipe sits in water (moisture), the water is warm (temperature), and it sits for hours (time). As a result, the iron inhibitors are broken down, unlocking the iron in your whole wheat, rye, or other grain.

Tip #4: Buy A Grain Mill

Fresh milled grain is higher in the enzymes that reduce iron inhibitors in your flour. If you fresh mill your grain yourself, you will improve your absorption of iron in the breads that you bake. Use recipes with a long rise time or sourdough preparations for best results.

Tip #5: Pass On The Coffee

As we discuss in the Iron Rich Foods book, of this list of drinks, some reduce your iron absorption by three times, others enhance your iron absorption:

• Coffee
• Red Wine
• Tea
• Milk
• Orange Juice

Coffee, red wine, tea, and milk are all iron inhibitors. Orange juice helps you absorb it better. One researcher we cite in the Iron Rich Foods book examined how long before meals and after meals you can actually drink coffee. He must be a coffee drinker.

The two times in life nutritionists recommend supplementing for iron is in infancy and pregnancy. In infancy, mother’s milk is often deficient in iron due to insufficient iron in pregnancy.

In the table at right, select your gender and age to determine your daily iron requirements.

To give you a sense of the iron content of foods, we examine high iron foods below relative to the iron requirement of a 30-year-old woman. Men will need about half this level of iron but the figures below will give you the relative levels across foods.

Your best sources of iron come from meat-based foods. Clam is an extremely good source of iron as are giblets and liver. You may stew giblets into broth or gravy but you can also just eat regular old beef. It is also a good source. You will absorb the iron in these animal-based foods well. In fact, they will help you absorb more iron from the grains and beans that you eat. Integrating more of these foods into your diet should improve your iron status.

In the graphs below I list plant-based sources of iron. These are good options too however consider that if you are low in iron and if your diet contains little meat, you will benefit from reading more about increasing your absorption of iron through kitchen preparation techniques. Read more about soaking beans to improve your iron absorption.