1. Leave Out the Processing
The US RDA of zinc is 12 to 15mg. Even though it is considered one of the trace minerals, it is important for many body functions, including building healthy tissue and it improves immune function and aids detoxification. Getting your zinc RDA may not be easy, but when you pick zinc-rich grains, it can help. Some types of grains, as you may imagine, are higher than others. Processing of most grains may take out half the zinc, as well as most of the other nutrients and minerals. Avoiding these processed grains, especially when eating out, is next to impossible. However, choosing unprocessed grains, or whole grains, instead of bleached, de-germinated grains helps you get the zinc you need.
2. Pair It Up
Eating zinc rich grains, such as whole grain brown rice, with certain other foods high in zinc not only brings you to your recommended 12mg a day, depending on the source you use, it may also boost your iron as well. Beef is a great source of zinc since farmers typically supplement the cattle's diet with zinc to encourage growth. As an added benefit, beef is also high in iron. Choose a source of beef that is grass fed or organic, to ensure the cow you're eating wasn't fed leftover animal parts. You also may want to choose beef that has never received growth hormones, so your not consuming "Franken-food." Pair up brown rice with spinach, and you not only get the iron, but you also benefit from the extra magnesium and phytochemicals in the chlorophyll as well.
3. Cook It Up
When you boil your rice, do you wonder what happens to the mineral content? Are your vitamins and minerals getting washed down the drain? If you used a stripped, then enriched rice product, the answer is probably yes. The calcium and iron applied to most white rice products washes off when you cook and drain your rice. Plus, since most, if not all, of your zinc was already stripped away during processing and never replaced during the enrichment process, then there's nothing left of it to wash away. Go with a natural, whole grain like millet, and cooking actually makes the zinc more bio-available. The cooking process reduces the amount of iron and zinc by about 18 percent, but makes what remains 50 to 80 percent more absorbable. This is great news in helping us meet our RDA, since most people prefer not to gnaw on raw dried grains.
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