Iron Rich Foods List

Welcome to our page all about foods rich in iron where we have provided free information on some of the most beneficial iron rich foods available. Iron is an essential mineral that the human body needs in order to stay healthy and function to it's potential, by ensuring that you regularly consume foods from our iron rich foods list you are taking a big step towards ensuring that your body is sufficiently stocked up at all times. This page is a great way to help you form some ideas for getting iron rich food into your diet.

If you do not consume a sufficient amount of iron then it is possible that you can develop an iron deficiency, we have a page dedicated to this subject so if you believe you are experiencing iron deficiency symptoms or just want to know more about them, please click here.

Why should we eat foods rich in iron?

As with all of the essential vitamins and minerals, if we do not take enough iron in then there are adverse consequences for our bodies. There is no better way to ensure that you get all of the iron that you need than by eating foods rich in iron. Here we are going to talk about why it is that you actually need iron.

Iron's role in the body is producing hemoglobin which is what is needed in our blood cells to transport oxygen around the body. Iron found in iron rich food comes in two different types called 'heme' and 'non-heme'. These two different types of iron are found in different types of foods rich in iron, heme iron is used more efficiently by your body than non-heme iron.

Foods rich in iron with heme iron in:

Foods rich in iron with non-heme iron in:

Without the relevant amount of iron in our bodies an insufficient amount of hemoglobin is produced and the result is that not enough oxygen is carried around the body to the areas that need it, this can lead to an iron deficiency as we have already mentioned which leads to the medical condition known as anemia. For more information on anemia please click here

In short we require iron rich foods to prevent our body's experiencing the following symptoms of anemia, a common nutritional deficiency:

So we know what iron does for us and the types of foods rich in iron that we can eat to ensure we are taking in a sufficient amount, but how much is sufficient? The list below portrays the recommended amounts of iron that should be consumed each day:

• Men - 8 milligrams of iron per day
• Pre-menopausal women - 18 milligrams of iron per day
• Postmenopausal women - 8 milligrams of iron per day
• Pregnant women - 27 milligrams of iron per day
• Women breast feeding - 9 milligrams of iron per day

Due to the fact that non-heme iron is not as efficiently absorbed by the body these allowances are generally increased to ensure that enough iron is received. Be careful not to take too much though (too much being in excess of double the daily amount) as this can be toxic and lead to serious illness. You will notice that you are consuming too much if you experience constipation and indigestion.

Iron rich foods list

There are two main reasons why you may be looking for an iron rich foods list, either to make sure that your iron levels are sufficiently topped up or to combat an iron deficiency. In this section we have a full iron rich food list for you:

In order to find out exactly how much iron is found in each of these iron rich foods you can find out by reading their label as there will always be standard nutritional information on there. As you can see there are a lot of foods rich in iron so you will not have any difficulty in getting these into your diet if you have been told, or have decided that you should be consuming more iron.

Are you getting enough iron rich food in your diet?

We cannot stress enough how important it is to have an adequate amount of foods rich in iron in your daily diet, iron deficiencies such as anemia are one of the most common nutritional deficiencies in the world and is responsible for affecting a great many people. With meat being one of the most prominent sources of iron it is not uncommon for vegetarians to be more vulnerable to developing an iron deficiency. Fortunately there are plenty of other things on our iron rich foods list that are suitable for those people that choose to be vegetarian. If you think that you may be suffering from an iron deficiency please check out our page on iron deficiency symptoms.

If you are not sure as to whether you are getting enough iron in your diet through foods rich in iron then one good idea is to record the amount of iron that you are consuming. The principle here is exactly the same as that of calorie counting. Each time you eat something check on the the label/s how much iron is in the food and record this down in a notebook or on a note on your phone. You can total up at the end of the day the amount of iron that you consumed and compare this across the days in a week or two week period. You are therefore setting yourself a benchmark so that you know whether or not you need to take a closer look at our iron rich foods list!

We hope that our iron rich foods list has been useful to you and that you now understand how important it is to consume a regular amount of food rich in iron. There is much more to our website than just information on iron rich food so please take a look around at the other lists of foods that we have for all of the other vitamins and minerals that your body needs to stay fit and healthy!