Discover 9 vegan foods that provide more iron than steak

Hi there, welcome to this week's podcast. So, this week's podcast is kind of a bit of a fun topic, we're going to be talking about foods that actually have more iron than red meat. So, I'm going to give you a list of foods that have more iron than a steak. Before I start on that though, I just wanted to remind you about my new vegan snacks recipe book that is coming out. It is super boosted vegan snacks for kids. So, it's packed full of snack recipes that your kids will really love things like muesli bars, different types of protein balls, hit some muffins. There's going to be savory snacks in there too. And I'm even doing some frozen things like high iron ice cream, and so yet lots of recipes but they've been specifically developed by me as a Vegan Nutritionist to be really high in iron and protein, and zinc and calcium and all the nutrients that your vegan kids really need. 

So that's going to be coming out in May, I'm just finishing off the recipes now and then I'm going to be putting it all together. So, it's really exciting, so make sure that you sign up with on the waitlist down below so that you can get all the updates about it and when it's released. All right, so let's talk about vegan foods that have more iron than a steak. So, why am I doing this? Well, whenever anyone says that they have low iron, the default response is always that you need to go and eat red meat. I know that when I was growing up when I was tired or anything, my parents used to always go and make me have a steak. 

So, I never really wanted to I wasn't vegan, I wasn't even a vegetarian growing up. I wanted to be vegetarian but I wasn't allowed to because my parents thought that in order to get enough iron, you had to be getting it from red meat, which is such a common belief everywhere. And one of the really big stumbling blocks that people have when it comes to going vegetarian or vegan. So, what I wanted to do was basically just for fun, find out do foods exist? That actually have more iron than red meat, more iron than a piece of steak. So, if you want to know more about sort of how much iron your kids need, and that sort of thing. 

I have other podcast episodes, I've done a couple of really in depth ones about iron vegan kids and how to actually make sure that your kids are getting enough. So, I'm not gonna go into detail about that. But basically, vegan kids need around 10 milligrams of iron a day. So, it kind of jumps up and down a bit but it's generally ten. Apart from any teenagers who are menstruating, they need 15 milligrams, so iron needs jump up for them. Yeah, we're looking at about 10 milligrams of iron a day. The first question is, how much iron is there actually in red meat? So, if red meat is supposed to be the beyond and all of low iron, curing how much I ended up actually have. 

So, I did a little bit of research and a small steak weighs 155 grams, so that has 2.9 milligrams of iron. Now, if you remember, kids need about 10 milligrams of iron a day. So, even if they have one steak every day, they are not going to be getting all of their iron from the steak. The other thing also is that the Australian dietary guidelines don't actually recommend that we have steak every day. Children should only be having one to two servings of meat. So, a serve of meat is 65 grams. So, 155 grams of steak is actually well over what young children should be having each day for their recommended intake of meat. 

So, the dietary guidelines so these have been developed by hundreds of nutrition experts, they're not just thrown together. There is a lot of research and a lot of work to put into the dietary guidelines and they are certainly not expecting us to be getting all of our iron from meat. They certainly don't see steak as the solution to low iron. Alright, so we're looking at a steak being 155 grams is a small steak. So just for fun, I put a whole bunch of my favorite high iron foods into my Nutrition Software that I use. Just to compare and see exactly how much iron they have compared to a steak. 

So, in order to make the comparisons easy and simple, I put 155 grams of those foods. Now, it's going to be way more than you'd normally have because obviously you're not going to sit there and have 155 grams of cocoa powder in one setting that will be very bitter. But this gives you a really good idea of a good comparison between them to see exactly how much iron there is in the foods that we have as vegans. Alright, so as I said, 155 grams of steak gives you 2.9 milligrams of iron. 155 grams of black beans gives you 3.3 milligrams of iron. So, there is more iron in black beans than there is in a steak. 

Now, one thing when I talk about this and do comparisons of food like this, a lot of people come back and say that the iron in meat is more easily absorbed than the iron in plant based foods. And it's kind of, yes and kind of no. So, I do go into this in a lot more detail in my other podcast episodes. We're actually talking about the difference between plant based iron and Animal Food iron. So, non-heme and heme iron but basically, our body does actually have mechanisms to increase absorption of plant based iron if our iron is low. So, while animal based iron is more easily absorbed by the body, our bodies can actually increase absorption of plant based iron as well. 

So it's not quite as clear cut as they used to understand. But this area of research is quite new, so it's not super conclusive. So yes, the iron in black beans may not be quite as well absorbed as the iron in the steak. But that will depend on your iron levels as well. All right, kidney beans are the same, so they've got 3.3 milligrams as well. Brown Lentils have a bit more, so they've got 3.7 milligrams for the 155 grams. Now, tofu is starting to jump up now something else is it's only a small percentage difference between the absorption of iron from meat and plant based foods. So it's not a huge difference. As we started to get into these higher numbers, you're gonna get much better absorption, much better iron levels, regardless of if it's a bit harder for our body to absorb it. 

Okay, so tofu is 4.5 milligrams so that's a really decent that's one and a half times more iron than a steak, almonds. So, this is when we get into our nuts and seeds. So almonds are 5.8 milligrams, that's basically double the amount of iron is in almonds than it is in a steak. Sunflower seeds 7.1 milligrams, that's two and a half times basically very, very approximate maths there. Cashews, cashews are one of my favorites they're 7.8 milligrams. So, this is for 155 grams of cashews. Sesame seeds are 8 milligrams, they're really good. Now, we get into the really big ones, pumpkin seeds 15.5, so there's five times as much iron in pumpkin seeds as there is in a steak. 

And trust me, the absorption difference is definitely not a factor of five. And the other one so this is my favorite and this is why I always promote this food. Cocoa powder is 34.5 milligrams. So yes, that is a hundred fifty five grams of cocoa which I'm not sure that must be over a cup. But still, that's eleven times more iron in cocoa powder than there is in a steak, which is just amazing. Now, I will also mention hemp seeds are really good as well. They're close to pumpkin seeds but unfortunately because of the whole thing where hemp seeds. So hemp was classified as illegal in Australia until very recently, and so we weren't allowed to sell them and stuff and my nutrition software that I use is Australian based. 

So I can't get an official sort of measurement for hemp seeds through my SEM. So, my software draws the information from the government sites, the government food databases and stuff. I'm not just getting its information straight off the internet. But for hemp seeds, I did have to go looking up for American sites and stuff. Hemp seeds have got a little bit over pumpkin seeds, so they'll sit in between pumpkin seeds and cocoa powder. Yeah, so amazing amounts of iron in these foods and cocoa powder. Although the 155 grams isn't a very realistic serving size, two tablespoons is definitely a decent amount and that has 4.3 milligrams of iron. 

So that's well over the amount that is in a steak and definitely a more realistic amount that you would be having. And also, this is cocoa powder. So just the stuff you get from the supermarket. I'm not talking about cacao here or anything like that. It's just plain cocoa powder that you just get from the supermarket. So yeah, those numbers are amazing. There is so much more iron in plant based foods than there is in red meat. So, maybe next time anyone is diagnosed with low iron, maybe they need to actually be prescribed a hot cocoa each day, rather than a piece of steak. And these numbers are definitely the reason why whenever I'm talking to people about iron. 

I always recommend to them cocoa powder, pumpkin seeds and cashews because they're really quite easy for kids to have, and they are really high in iron for them. So yeah, that's all I have for today. I hope that was just little fun one for you, just to do a bit of a comparison and make sure you sign up below for the recipe book because it's going to be amazing. My recipes have got a lot of cocoa powder, pumpkin seeds and cashews in them. All right, I'll talk to you next week.