Welcome to Science Facts Sundays.

These are some notes I took when reading Iron Rich Foods: Unlock the Iron in Your Food and Fight Iron Deficiency by Amanda Rose, Ph.D.

My daughter knows why we don’t drink milk with an iron-rich meal. She can tell you, “calcium inhibits iron absorption!”

I don’t see the point of eating foods and not being able to absorb them and utilize all their benefits. What a shame to waste the iron in our foods when we eat them with dairy products. Simply knowing to separate the foods for ultimate utilization can be helpful for combating low iron levels.

You may find this geeky - so be forewarned! If this topic doesn’t appeal to you, check back in a few weeks and I’ll have moved on to something else that you may be interested in.

Here are some morsels for you to chew on (written in my own words):

Although fruit itself generally does not contain much iron, fruit does contain Vitamin C which enhances iron absorption.

The top seven fruits with the highest amounts of iron, ranging from 10-18% daily recommendation are (lowest to highest): mulberries, blueberries, rowal, persimmons, tamarinds, currants,and olives.

The fruit containing the highest amount of Vitamin C is the peach. 1 cup of peaches can contain as many as 236 milligrams of Vitamin C. Maybe we need to be drinking peach juice during colds, not orange juice, which only has 124 milligrams per cup of Vitamin C. Papayas, cranberries, strawberries, grapefruit juice, kiwi, mango, pineapple and cantaloupe are in the top 10 for Vitamin C content.

A study quoted in this resource found when you increase the Vitamin C content in your meal from 50 to 250 milligrams, you double your iron absorption.

When selecting fruit, bear in mind that Vitamin C content peaks when fruit is ripe, then declines as it becomes over ripe.

Your best dairy sources for iron are: turkey, duck, or goose eggs. 100 grams (roughly one egg since these eggs run larger than chicken eggs) provide 23% of your daily recommendation for iron. 100 grams of egg yolk (5 or 6 egg yolks) provide 11% of your daily requirement for iron. Other good sources are whole eggs and goat cheese.

Although eggs will add a decent amount of iron in your diet, they also contain a lot of calcium. Evidence suggests high-calcium foods inhibit iron absorption. You may want to keep your quiche to breakfast and leave out the ground beef, consuming that later during lunch or dinner. Likewise, if your meal is high in iron, skip the glass of milk.

Although any amount of calcium will inhibit iron, small amounts will only inhibit it a little bit. If you aren’t struggling with iron-deficiency issues, you can probably get away with a spoonful of cream or a smattering of cheese on your ground beef-filled taco or burrito.

Are you surprised to learn sweeteners can contain iron? Natural sweeteners such as molasses, sucanat, and whole cane sugar contain some iron. Try to choose these options rather than white sugar whenever possible.

Herbs and spices can also provide iron in amounts that are nothing to sneeze at. Although we generally only consume small amounts at a time, those of us concerned with iron levels would do good to include them in our diets on a regular basis.

Thyme tops the list of the ten herbs and spices containing the most iron. 1 Tablespoon of thyme provides 34% of the daily recommended iron intake for adults. The remaining nine herbs and spices are: spearmint, marjoram, cumin seed, dill weed, celery seed, bay leaf, coriander leaf, basil, and turmeric (all at 5 grams, or approximately one tablespoon).

That’s it for today! I hope you learned something. If you did, feel free to leave me a note in the comments If you didn’t learn anything, then you are definitely a geek!

Next week we continue the discussion on beverages and iron and phytic acid…

Amanda Rose, Ph.D. authored Iron Rich Foods: Unlock the Iron in Your Food and Fight Iron Deficiency, where I have based these science facts. She is also the author of Rebuild From Depression: A Nutrient Guide, Including Depression in Pregnancy and Postpartum, and the Phytic Acid White Paper: Reducing Phytic Acid in Your Food. She is also the blogger behind Traditional-Foods.com.

• Intro
• Part 1
• Part 2: Meat (and some grains)
• Part 3: Soaking Cereal Grains
• Part 4: Baked Bread
• Part 5: Beans, Nuts and Seeds
• Part 6: Vegetables
• Part 7: Fruit, Dairy, Sweeteners, Herbs and Spices
• Part 8: Beverages & Cooking in Cast Iron
• Part 9 (Final): Meal Ideas

Similar Posts:

Science Facts Sundays: Maximizing Iron Absorbency, Part 8: Beverages & Cooking in Cast Iron
Science Facts Sundays: Maximizing Iron Absorbency, Part 6: Vegetables

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