In the quest for your dietary iron, choose foods with high iron content as entrees or to enrich other dishes. Possibilities range from everyday breakfast cereals to indulgences such as oyster stew and turkey stuffing. Besides adding delicious variety to your diet, food sources of iron contribute other minerals, vitamins, protein and dietary fiber. The USDA Dietary Guidelines for Americans report that this makes eating iron-rich foods superior to taking supplement pills. You need 18 mg of iron per day, according to the FDA, and high-iron foods are those that provide 4 mg or more per serving.
Clams
Raw clams contain 12 mg of dietary iron in 3 oz., and processing these mollusks concentrates their iron minerals. Because canned clams have such rich iron content -- 24 mg in a 3-oz. serving -- you can disperse them in soups and other dishes and still get significant iron by the portion. The USDA Nutrient Database includes oysters, with 6 mg, as an alternative seafood source of heme iron, which is most easily absorbed by the body.
Enriched Cereal
Iron-enriched whole-grain cereals provide nonheme iron, which the body absorbs less efficiently but which is present in cereal in large amounts. The National Institutes of Health note that drinking orange juice or getting another source of vitamin C with this meal increases iron absorption. Some wheat, corn, oat, barley and rice cereals have as much as 18 mg of fortified iron content. Package labels will post this information as the percentage of your total daily value of iron per serving.
Turkey Giblets
Indulge in organ meats such as chicken, turkey, pork and beef liver occasionally for their high iron content. Poultry giblets add dietary iron to whole-grain stuffing, with 10 to 11 mg per 1 cup of simmered giblets. The USDA notes that pork liver sausage, or braunschweiger, has 6 mg of iron in two slices, and beef liver has 5 mg per 3 oz.
Lentils
Lentils represent legume food sources in which iron is high and fat is low. With 7 mg of iron in 1 cooked cup, lentils make another rich iron ingredient for soups and stews. The USDA adds soybeans, kidney beans and black-eyed peas to the list of high-iron legumes.
Spinach
Cooked spinach, which provides 6 mg of iron in 1 cup, shares that ultra-rich mineral content that lends itself to composed dishes. In fact, spinach is often blended with iron-rich tomatoes and legumes in lentil soup. Turnip greens and potatoes represent additional vegetable sources with high dietary iron.
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