Do Vegans Get Enough Iron Since They Don’t Eat Meat? by Brenda Davis

Intro

[Music] iron deficiency is a really common myth in the nutrition world that vegetarians are somehow a greatly increased risk in fact if you look at the research vegetarians and vegans aren't really at increased risk for iron deficiency now I do see iron the the vegetarians at I see.

Iron deficiency in vegetarians

Iron deficiency in are the vegetarians that are usually lacto-ovo and they're consuming a lot of their calories from Dairy Dairy is very poor source of iron and it's also it actually inhibits the absorption of iron so it's like a double whammy.

Iron deficiency in dairy

So people that you know think this is we see this sometimes people switching from a meat and potatoes diet to you know pizza with cheese and macaroni and cheese and grilled cheese sandwiches because those are comfortable familiar foods for them and and so they they can end up with problems with iron when when you do that but for most vegetarians and vegans what's really surprising to people is vegans actually eat consume more iron than omnivores almost everything they eat has iron whereas dairy has so little.

Iron when it takes a chunk of your calories and you know it adds up to less than what you would think so so no there's not more iron deficiency however we still need to be conscious about iron and so there are few things that people need to know oh and there's one other thing I want to say there's a difference between the type of iron implants and the type of iron in animals so the type of iron in.

Types of iron

Animals there are actually two types heme and non-heme so probably about 40% of the iron in animal products is heme iron which is the iron associated with blood okay and then the rest will be non heme and in plants it's all non heme well non heme iron is absorbed very differently than heme iron so your body has a filter for heme iron or I'm sorry for non heme iron it's absorbed more slowly some types of human like ferritin.

Ferritin

It's absorbed in this molecule with a thousand or more atoms of iron and and that iron is released slowly as your body needs it which is.

Heme Iron

It's a protection for the body really where as heme iron there's no filter it just gets absorbed floods your body and and if you end up with a lot of heme iron in your blood it can actually act as a pro-oxidant which is of course the exact opposite of an antioxidant which we want a lot of in the pro oxidant can actually accelerate rates of certain types of diseases so it can increase your risk for things like heart disease and diabetes and stroke and and other.

Diseases even dementia so we need there are some advantages to getting our iron from plants and with that having been.

Iron Sources

Said a couple more things for people to know the the sort of richest iron sources would be things like legumes of course lentils are a good source and other legumes as well we get some from nuts and seeds we get some from some dried fruits we get some from you know blackstrap molasses if you use it and of course from green vegetables and so you get little bits from all sorts of foods but the major source is legumes and so.

Reduce Iron Absorption

The other thing to know is that you can reduce the absorption of non heme iron by about 50 to 90 percent by consuming a lot of what we call fight AIDS or tannins with your meal phytates it's a most concentrated source is wheat bran so you know some people sprinkle bran on their cereal to get the extra fiber vegetarians and vegans should never do that you get plenty of fiber in your diet if you're eating whole plant foods you don't need to sprinkle phytates on your.

Food because we want to enhance the absorption of iron and zinc not diminish the absorption of these nutrients and.

Tea

And then tannins which would come from teas even some herbal teas but mainly black and green teas and when you drink those with your meal you inhibit the absorption of iron so if you have any concerns about iron you would want to keep your tea drinking our two before or after meals rather than drinking it with your meals and then the other thing to know is there some things actually enhance the absorption of iron and and the main ones we know about our organic acids and.

Vitamin C and vitamin C can increase the absorption of iron two to six times don't have the sort of the organic acids well quantified yet but also some phytochemical components from from tumeric and ginger and even carotenoids and these things can actually help absorption of iron as well [Music] you [Music].