Red blood cells must constantly be replenished by the human body as some die off, especially after surgery, chemotherapy or other events in which your blood count drops. Your body needs protein, iron, vitamin C and vitamins B2, B6, B9 and B12 as raw materials for blood cell formation. Choose nutrient-dense items from each food group to best benefit your overall diet. Healthy foods that you can eat often will make the biggest impact on regenerating lost blood cells.
Bran Flakes
Add blood-making elements to your diet every day with a suggested serving of wheat or oat bran flakes. Many brands contain a full 100 percent daily value, or DV, of iron, which your body uses to make the hemoglobin component of red blood cells. Many types contribute fortified content of vitamin B2, or riboflavin, B6, B9, or folate, and B12 to your diet, as well as a few grams of protein. Milk increases your protein and vitamin B totals.
Roasted Chicken Breast
Chicken breast meat has a large amount of protein and natural content of every B vitamin needed to replenish your blood count. Light meat has more protein than dark meat, and roasting rather than frying chicken restricts calories from fat, so you can eat it more often without gaining weight. Additional healthy animal-based protein foods include lean beef round, tuna, salmon and pork loin.
Cottage Cheese
A balanced diet requires major calcium sources such as those in the dairy group every day. Use high-protein cottage cheese as one of your dairy servings. With as much protein per cup as 3 oz. of meat, poultry or fish and some of every relevant B vitamin, cottage cheese helps your body regenerate blood. To minimize weight gain and cardiovascular risks, the American Heart Association recommends buying low-fat 1 percent dairy products.
Dry Beans
Keep your protein and iron intakes high by eating cooked dry beans frequently. Lentils and split peas, as well as navy, kidney, pinto and garbanzo beans, all provide significant protein and iron with less fat than animal-based foods. The high folate and moderate riboflavin, and vitamin B6 content also promotes blood cell growth.
Cooked Spinach
Spinach contains every element you need to increase your blood count in very few calories and is easy to incorporate into your diet alone or in other dishes. Cooked spinach has 11 percent DV of protein, 36 percent DV of iron, 29 percent DV of vitamin C, 66 percent DV of folate and more than 20 percent DV each of riboflavin and vitamin B6 per 1 cup.
Orange Juice
A quick half-cup serving of orange juice will help your body absorb the iron from other foods. This small serving of orange juice supplies more than half of your daily vitamin C, of which your body uses only a fraction to support blood cell growth.
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