The Recipe Doctor
From low-fat recipes to recipes designed for persons with diabetes, Elaine Magee, MPH, RD, shares recipes and advice to create healthy meals that are guaranteed to please. [Editor's note: Elaine no longer contributes to Silver Planet, but we have made her archived blog entries available as a service to our readers.]
Perfect Partners: Iron and Vitamin C
Need iron? Has the doctor said you are a little anemic and need to get more iron in your meals?
Here are the key points to remember about iron:
- Normally, only 10–15% of the iron we get from food is absorbed.
- Iron occurs in two forms in foods: (1) as heme iron bound into the iron-carrying proteins hemoglobin and myoglobin in meats, poultry, and fish and (2) as nonheme iron.
- Most of the iron the average person consumes in a day is nonheme iron that we get from vegetables, fruits, grains, and eggs. We also get some from beans, meat, fish, and poultry.
- The beans noted as contributing a good amount of iron are soybeans (and tofu), lima beans, navy beans, black-eyed peas, and kidney beans.
- Other top iron sources include oysters, clams, spinach, shrimp, sirloin steak, and baked potatoes.
Enhance the absorption of iron
How? With vitamin C, the most potent promoter of nonheme iron absorption when consumed in the same meal with iron.
How does it work? Vitamin C captures iron and keeps it in a soluble form (able to be dissolved in another substance) that is ready for absorption.
Keep in mind that vitamin C is water soluble, which means some of it leaks into the water when it’s being cooked. That’s why it’s best not to cook vitamin C–rich foods in a lot of water, unless it’s a stew or similar dish, when you’re also consuming the cooking liquid. Here are three suggestions for a quick-and-easy meal or snack that incorporates iron and vitamin C:
- Chili (with or without meat): You get iron from beans and the meat and vitamin C from tomatoes.
- Tofu and broccoli stir-fry: You get iron from tofu and vitamin C from broccoli.
- Spinach salad with oranges or papaya: You get iron from spinach and vitamin C from papaya and/or oranges.
I have a table of the top 40 vitamin C–rich foods in my latest book, Food Synergy (page 351). Here are the first seven:
- Orange juice, fresh (1 cup = 124 mg)
- Broccoli (1 cup cooked from fresh= 124 mg)
- Brussels sprouts (1 cup cooked = 96 mg)
- Grapefruit juice, fresh (1 cup = 94 mg)
- Papaya cubes (1 cup = 86 mg)
- Strawberry halves (1 cup = 86 mg)
- Kiwifruit (1 whole = 74 mg)
By Elaine Magee, MPH, RD
The Recipe Doctor Blog
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