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 You can get your daily requirement of iron from either meat, poultry, fish or plant foods.
You can find almost two-thirds of the iron in your in your blood’s hemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen throughout the body. Smaller amounts are found in myoglobin, a protein that helps supply oxygen to your muscles, and in enzymes that help with biochemical reactions.
There are two forms of dietary iron: heme and nonheme. And both are important, especially to pre-menopausal women because of pregnancy and menstruation.
Heme iron comes from hemoblogin, and is found in foods from animals that originally contained hemoglobin, such as red meats, fish and poultry. You’ll get your highest concentrations of iron from these kinds of foods, which creates a predicament for people trying to lose weight by cutting out as much saturated fat in meat as possible. Nonheme iron is contained in a wide variety of plant foods and added to iron-enriched and iron-fortified foods, such as breakfast cereals. Here is a chart of the best sources of heme iron. Visit Nubella's Recipe Database and Healthy Cooking Center for more than 6,000 recipes using many of these foods.
Sources of Iron from Meat, Fish and Poultry | Food | Milligrams Per Serving | % DV | Chicken Liver, cooked,
3 1/2 ounces | 12.8 | 70 | | Oysters, breaded and fried, 6 pieces | 4.5 | 25 | | Beef, chuck, lean, braised, 3 ounces | 3.2 | 20 | | Claims, breaded, fried, 3/4 cup | 3.0 | 15 | | Beef, tenderloin, roasted, 3 ounces | 3.0 | 15 | | Turkey, dark meat, roasted, 3 1/2 ounces | 2.3 | 10 | | Beef, eye of round, roasted, 3 ounces | 2.2 | 10 | | Turkey, light meat, roasted, 3 1/2 ounces | 1.6 | 8 | | Chicken, leg, meat only, roasted, 3 1/2 ounces | 1.3 | 6 | | Tuna, fresh bluefin, cooked, dry heat, 3 ounces | 1.1 | 6 | | Chicken, breast, roasted, 3 ounces | 1.1 | 6 | | Halibut, cooked, dry heat, 3 ounces | 0.9 | 6 | | Crab, blue, cooked, moist heat, 3 ounces | 0.8 | 4 | | Pork, loin, broiled, 3 ounces | 0.8 | 4 | | Tuna, white, canned in water, 3 ounces | 0.8 | 4 | | Shrimp, cooked, moist heat, 4 large | 0.7 | 4 |
Source: U.S. Office of Dietary Supplements
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