Plant Based Eaters Do Not Have Iron Deficiency – By Author Brenda Davis

Intro

uh iron is another nutrient that people often think uh those eating plant-based won’t get enough of because what food do we associate iron with meat right that’s the what people associate iron with so again we have to ask how much iron we actually need well the rda is 18 milligrams for women in child bearing aids women who are menstruating and for men or older women who are postmenopausal it’s only eight milligrams and the tolerable upper limit is 45 milligrams and in fact the the uh institute of medicine recommends 1.8 times higher intake for vegetarians however this

Special Recommendations for Vegetarians

recommendation is highly controversial and is quite on i think unnecessary because it was based on one study and what they did in that study was they maximized the inhibitors of iron absorption and minimized the enhancers of iron absorption to make the diet as bad as it could possibly be to see how much more a vegetarian might need in a worst case scenario people don’t really eat that way in the real world and so it’s an absolute worst case scenario i think for most people a slight increase perhaps and for a lot of people no increase is necessary if you’re eating a lot of vitamin c rich foods and and other

Actual Iron Intake

foods which i’ll mention in a second so if we compare the adventist the actual intakes of iron you can see in the adventist health study too vegans ate the most iron non-vegetarians the least same in epic oxford same in the diet quality study from belgium that we talked about vegans at 23 milligrams non-vegetarians at 17. people go wow how i don’t understand how that could happen i always thought you know steak was the mo the richest source but the reality is milk is an extremely poor source of iron and so when you take the milk out and you’re eating all plant foods well they all have some iron so the numbers just add up that way

Plant-based diets do not increase risk for iron deficiency anemia.

plant-based diets do not increase risk for iron deficiency anemia the prevalence of iron deficiency is about the same in meat eaters and people who eat plant-based vegetarian and vegan iron intakes are generally either similar to or higher than

Vegetarian Iron Status?

non-vegetarians but what about iron status because we know there’s a difference in the type of iron for meat and the type of iron from plants and won’t people eating the meat absorb it better and have better iron status and in fact vegetarians don’t have a higher incidence of iron deficiency however they do have lower iron stores typically which means lower serum ferritin levels however lower lower serum ferritin levels may do not necessarily affect how a person feels um they don’t appear to be a disadvantage to people when iron stores are replenished and we replenish losses and in fact having slightly within normal range but slightly lower iron stores may actually turn out to be an advantage because lower serum ferritin with adequate hemoglobin may reduce risk of insulin resistance metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes cardiovascular disease some types of cancers because it reduces oxidative stress heme iron tends to increase

Two Forms of Iron in Food

oxidative stress as we mentioned there are two forms of iron so in meat uh a certain percent of the iron is is in the heme form not all of it maybe 40 percent or so or 50 50 to 60 percent uh in meat is heme and and 40 and some less red meats i would say 15 to 35 percent is is bioavailable of heme iron but it can serve as a pro-oxidant so that’s why it’s linked to all of these diseases whereas non-heme iron in both plants and meat so the balance of the iron and meat is non-heme it’s only 1 to 23 percent bioavailable but the bioavailability depends on physiological iron requirements so if your iron replete you absorb less if you your iron depleted you absorb much more in fact your your absorption can be 10 times higher when you’re depleted in iron so your body knows how to compensate for that so

Maximizing Iron Status

maximizing iron status how do we do that we will want to moderate our intake of iron absorption inhibitors we want to boost our intake of enhancers we want to replace meat with legumes rather than dairy and we want to select iron rich foods within each food group so let’s address each of those so iron inhibitors what are they phytates polyphenolic compounds zinc from single

1. Moderate intake of iron absorption inhibitors.

mineral supplements and calcium and dairy products all reduce the absorption of iron so phytates can reduce iron absorption by up to 90 percent we can partly counteract that with vitamin c rich foods wheat bran is the most concentrated source of phytates in the diet you should not especially if you’re eating a whole food plant-based diet do not sprinkle wheat bran on your food you don’t need it you get enough fiber from your whole foods you’re eating when you sprinkle wheat bran on your food you’re sprinkling your food with a phytate bomb and it reduces mineral absorption not just iron but zinc and other nutrients as well we can reduce phytates in foods by leavening sprouting fermenting soaking roasting all of these things will will start to break down phytates which are essentially the storage form of phosphorus in foods so that we can do and phytates aren’t all bad they actually can be anti-carcinogenic they can they can be anti-inflammatory so they can some phytates in the diet are not a bad

Polyphenolic Compounds

thing uh polyphenolic compounds like like tannins and tea can reduce iron absorption from from a meal by about 50 to 90 percent and they’re most concentrated in black and green tea so if you have problems with keeping your iron status where it needs to be do not drink tea with your meals drink it between your meals at least an hour to separate from your meals and we see lesser amounts in coffee herbal teas like peppermint and chamomile cocoa and wine so and vitamin c and organic acids again can compensate a little bit for these polyphenolic compounds

Boost intake of absorption enhancers.

so the second thing we want to do is boost our intake of iron absorption enhancers and so as i mentioned before foods rich in vitamin c and organic acids like citrus fruits and red peppers uh allium vegetables like onions and garlic have been found to enhance iron absorption beta-rich beta-carotene-rich foods like carrots spices like pepper and turmeric and ginger all of these can help with iron absorption now we want to be choosing legumes

Choose legumes instead of dairy to replace meat.

instead of dairy to replace meat legumes are a rich iron source they and they provide iron in a form that’s very slowly absorbed and not a pro-oxidant so they’re preferable in my opinion the problems with dairy are dairy is low in iron and meat is high in iron so when people swap out their meat and potatoes for grilled cheese sandwiches and lasagna and pizza with cheese they’re losing out on the iron and meat but they’re taking in a food to replace it that’s extremely low in iron and also it inhibits the absorption of iron so it’s a double whammy and so we see iron deficiencies sometimes develop in people that become lacto-ovo heavy lacto vegetarians a lot of dairy products so we want to select iron rich foods within each food group so in within the legume family soybeans tofu lentils are very rich iron sources in the whole grain group it’s more the pseudograins that are really concentrated in iron like amaranth and quinoa in the nuts and seeds category all seeds are rich in in iron but especially things like pumpkin seeds cashews pine nuts almonds brazil nuts are all pretty iron rich in the vegetable family peas string beans green leafy vegetables and then fruits like prune juice and dried fruits and then other foods fortified meat analogs black strap molasses actually ha two tablespoons of blackstrap molasses has as much iron as an eight ounce steak