Donating blood temporarily reduces the amount of iron present in your body in red blood cells. To make sure that you have enough to sustain your metabolism after giving blood, the American Red Cross suggests eating foods with plenty of iron beforehand.
Your body can absorb and store dietary iron from both animal and plant food sources. The Red Cross encourages you to seek low-fat foods from these categories, because fats in your bloodstream may interfere with pre-donation testing. For high iron content, choose foods that provide 20 percent or more of the FDA average recommended daily value, 18 mg.
Iron-enriched Cereals
Feel free to eat whole-grain cereals every day to help satisfy your daily iron requirements. According to the USDA Nutrient Database, some cereals contain 100 percent DV of iron or greater per suggested serving. These nutritious wheat, barley, corn, rice and oat sources are typically fortified with additional vitamins and minerals beyond their natural content and are rich in dietary fiber. Look for the DV percentages on the package's nutrition facts and choose your favorite cereal that is highest in iron and lowest in fat.
Legumes
You won't have to wonder how much dietary iron dry beans, peas and lentils contain. Nearly every variety of legumes offers 20 percent DV or more of daily iron per 1 cup. Split peas are a little lower, and soybeans are a little higher than the majority of legumes. These include pinto and lima beans; black-eyed peas; chickpeas; black, Great Northern and kidney beans; and lentils. Iron content for these ranges from 20 to 40 percent DV. According to the National Institutes of Health, or NIH, dishes that add small amounts of meat to these legumes, such as franks and beans, increase the efficiency of iron absorption while still limiting fat content.
Vegetables
Including meat or seafood ingredients in dishes made with leafy greens has a similar effect, the NIH notes. Blending food types optimizes the body's use of the iron content from plant sources such as cooked spinach, turnip greens and beet greens. The USDA notes that cooked spinach has as much as 33 percent DV of dietary iron in 1 cup. Other low-fat vegetables with moderate iron include beets, broccoli, potatoes and tomatoes.
Meats and Seafood
Choose less-fatty meat and seafood sources to get part of your dietary iron prior to donating blood, because fats remain in your bloodstream for several hours. Clams have less fat and four times the iron content of oysters, which still provide about 33 percent DV of iron in 3 oz. Among meats, lean lamb chops and beef round steak represent food sources of moderate but highly absorbable iron.
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