So this is what I\'ve gathered from various websites:

Your body doesn\'t produce iron. It must be fed iron. Only a small fraction, like one tenth, of the iron you consume actually makes it to your bloodstream.

Iron makes red blood cells. A red blood cell lives only for a few months so if you were low on red blood cells (anemic) in January and you didn\'t somehow increase your iron intake...by March you\'d feel even worse than you did in January because all your 3-month old red blood cells just died and you had a shortage to begin with. I think this is what my doctor was trying to explain to me when she said that basically if you fail to increase your red blood cells/iron, the iron deficiency just gets worse as time goes on.

There are two sources from which you can get iron: animals and plants.

Animal sources are the best because they are absorbed much more readily into your bod that plant sources. Great animal source iron is in: red meat, liver, poultry & seafood.

Plant sources kind of suck because they are not very potent, but here are some of the more iron-rich ones: spinach, bran cereal, baked potatoes.

Tip: plant-based iron will be soaked up better by your body if you eat it along WITH an animal-based iron source. And regardless of which source you get your iron from, if you consume vitamin C WITH it...your body will soak up the iron significantly better. The magic appears to occur when you eat all this stuff in one sitting. So this is a huge deal. Real important info. And also, if you drink a glass of milk WITH your meal, you\'ll take the iron in better as well because calcium helps you digest iron. Also, FYI 15-20 minutes a day in the sun generates all the calcium your body needs for the day, or so I heard. So maybe hang outside after you eat. Take a walk or something.

Huge deal #2: don\'t drink tea (black tea in particular) WITH your meals or near mealtime because it prevents your body from absorbing iron. Tea (as well as pomegrantes, wine, and non-ripe fruit) has something in it (called tannin) that overpowers iron absorption.

Generally, women need approximately 17 mgs of iron per day.

Update...don\'t eat grapefruit, oranges, or plums around the same time you will eat a meal from which you hope to absorb some iron. These fruits are high in tannin (the iron-inhibitor.) Consuming Vitamin C is a still a good idea around meal time, just not from these fruit sources.


Low-tannin stuff with Vitamin C (better off consuming these around mealtime): veges in general, strawberries


Its really a good idea to check the tannin-level of anything you plan to consume near mealtime. It takes only a minute to search the internet for low tannin & high tannin foods. Please share here what you learn. Thanks.

Avoid drinking carbonated beverages around the same time you are eating a meal from which you hope to get some iron.

Reason: carbonation requires the use of your body\'s calcium to break it down. In other words, carbonation depletes your calcium.

This is not good because: calcium helps improve your absorption of iron. In other words, you want to keep your calcium, not deplete it.

this was really helpful. I had no idea about the unripened fruit, wine or black tea, or carbonated beverages...