Iron in the Vegan Diet

[melissa]

One of my friends just asked me a wonderful question regarding Iron in
the vegan diet. I just went out and did some research and found that
they're on the right track with their concerns, however there's a
clear answer that hopefully will help everyone out.

There are two forms of Iron, which you may already know - Heme and Non-
Heme. Heme is found in animal meat, and is the most easily absorbed.
Vegetarians and vegans will only get Non-Heme iron, and it is less
easily absorbed so all that means is that the daily requirement for
Iron in vegans and vegetarians is higher. For women, prior to
menopause, the RDA for Iron is 33 milligrams per day (compared to 27
for animal-eaters... haha).

The best sources of iron for vegans and vegetarians are dried beans
and dark leafy green vegetables. This article is a good one, and will
give you some good examples of the best sources:

http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/iron.htm

As for David and me, we try to take our daily multi-vitamins (no
particular brand, usually Trader Joe's I suppose since we shop there a
lot), but as everyone knows, whether vegan, vegetarian or meat-eater,
multi-vitamins are never the best source for nutrition, so I tend to
eat a lot of edamame - also very high in protein, like 20% of your RDA
(it's wonderful if you've never tried it. you can find it in the
frozen section at any store, and you just boil it and add salt. you
don't eat the bean shell - just the beans inside, kind of similar to a
sunflower seed!), as well as the typical dark green veggies.

Please let me know if this is helpful, and always feel free to ask
plenty more questions. I love helping to answer them, and it also
helps me do more research so I can be better informed myself!! :)

[lindsay]

i think spinach has a lot of iron, though i'm not sure which type

[melissa]

You're definitely right. Anything not meat will have the Non-Heme
iron in it (vegans/vegetarians will never get the Heme iron in their
diets), however I've heard somewhere that there is more iron in a
serving of spinach than in a serving of red meat.

Yep- just found the research:

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_iron_is_in_200g_of_red_meat

Basically, 4.3 milligrams of iron in a medium steak, compared to 6.4
milligrams in half a cup of cooked spinach.

http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/iron.htm