Got Iron?

I’ve been really tired lately. It’s mostly because I haven’t been very diligent about getting enough sleep. But I think it’s more than that.

I noticed that I sometime get really sick towards to the end of my workday. For the last few days, I’ve been getting dizzy to the point I feel nauseous whenever I get up from my chair too quickly.

Then the light bulb came on. Ah, I might be iron deficient.

That would explain some of the dizziness and lethargy. I guess I could get tested for it, but I would rather try getting some iron in my diet and see if it makes any difference. I have an iron supplement, but it made me sick in stomach before. It was supposed to be a “gentle iron for sensitive stomach”. Apparently it wasn’t gentle enough for me.

Unfortunately just about any pill makes me sick in stomach. I always take it with food, though.

Is iron readily absorbed in body? Spinach is relatively high in iron, but I heard the type of iron it contains is not easily absorbed as is. What are the other foods with high iron content? Do I need to cook them in certain ways to increase iron absorption?

Here’s what I found out about iron.

There are two kinds of iron.
Hem Iron: mostly contained in animal protein such as liver, red meat, sardine, bonito, clams, and oyster. 15 to 25% of hem iron we eat will be absorbed.
Non-hem Iron: Mostly contained in vegetable protein such as soy bean products, Hijiki (can you tell I got this info off of a Japanese website?), spinach, and Komatsuna. Only about 5 % of non-hem iron we eat will be absorbed (darn!)

The key is to eat non-hem iron with vitamin C, which helps to convert non-hem iron into a more absorbable form in our bodies. Another thing is to have a healthy amount of stomach acid, because better digestion also means better absorption of iron. So the website suggested the use of citrus with non-hem food items along with other things.

I personally have no problem having enough stomach acid (I got the acid reflex). But this must be why it is recommended to squeeze lemon on spinach!

Maybe I should have a stake dinner with a side of spinach, perfected with a wedge lemon tonight.

My lunch today was a slice of pizza and strawberries, by the way.