Grocery List For Foods With Iron

Iron is an essential trace mineral found in the body, even though a healthy person normally has just under a teaspoon of it in the body. The major function of iron is to carry oxygen throughout the body. Two-thirds is present as hemoglobin, the red oxygen-carrying pigment of blood. The remainder is stored in the liver, spleen, bone marrow and muscles. The accumulation of iron in the body depends on the amount of iron absorbed from the diet, with only about 1 to 1.5 mg absorbed daily from 15 to 20 mg in the diet. Eating foods rich in iron is essential to overall health.

Meat Section

Heme iron is the iron responsible for transporting oxygen throughout the body, and because only animals have hemoglobin, heme iron is only found in meat. When shopping for iron-rich meat, choose just about any cut of beef, chicken, most organ meats, such as liver or giblets, duck and lamb. From the seafood department, try clams, oysters, sardines, raw oysters and shrimp.

Produce Section

Non-heme iron is the iron found naturally in plant foods such as spinach and whole grains. From the produce section, try barley, black beans, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, chickpeas, kale, kidney beans, lima beans, potatoes, spinach, strawberries, soybeans, tomatoes and white beans.

Breads and Cereal

Additional sources of non-heme iron include whole grains, nuts, peanut butter, pecans, raisins, walnuts and wheat germ. Additional sources of iron include unrefined black strap molasses, cold bran based cereals and cream of wheat. Numerous breads, cereals, and other baked products have much smaller amounts of iron. When shopping, check the Nutrition Facts label. It will list the percent daily values based on a specific calorie diet. For instance, oatmeal provides approximately 10 percent of the daily value of iron for a 2,000 calorie diet.

Cooking With Iron

Foods cooked in cast iron absorb safe amounts of extra iron, with acidic foods absorbing the most. Tomato sauce simmered in a cast-iron pot could have as much as 300 times the iron as sauces simmered in a stainless steel pot. So when cooking meats, for instance, their iron value can increase substantially when prepared in an iron skillet.