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Hello all!
Giant pregnant lady here, have a quick question… (and yes I am pretty sure this doesn’t belong in the women’s health forum)
I just tested negative for gestational diabetes, yay! I have only gained a mere 40 pounds at the beginning of my third trimester and have been pretty much following the HED, and I was very hypoglycemic before following Matt’s protocol a year before becoming pregnant, so this is pretty good news to me!
However, my giant super baby (who is totally giving me a testosterone boost and making me awesome at corn hole and beer pong [not drinking the beer obvs]) has been stealing all my iron and making me slightly anemic. I really can’t take the iron prenatals because they make me super nauseous… I remember a conversation going in the comments way back about good brands of molasses for getting iron…
Does anyone know what they are? Any other good foods for getting iron up, excluding red meat (gag)? Thanks y’all!Hi butterball, in my research the best kind of molasses to get is Blackstrap molasses. It is from the third and final boiling of the sugar cane and while the first few boils is to get more sugar out, the last is where all the minerals are left, including iron. Look it up on google and you should be directed to more info. It is different than organic or unsulfured but can be both. Another great resource is Earth Clinic’s molasses page- as it is a known folk remedy for anemia, among other things.
http://www.earthclinic.com/Remedies/molasses.html
You’ll also find a breakdown of molasses brands there. Just from my own experience, I got hives while taking the Plantation brand and don’t get them while I use Aunt Patty’s found in my local grocer’s. I like it in milk or half-n-half, in a concoction Matt Stone, himself, calls “half-asses”. It is more bitter than regular molasses, but adding it to a creamy liquid like over ice cream or with warm milk makes it turn into a caramel-like taste (which is essentially burnt sugar anyway).
My partner has successfully made what she calls “iron tonic syrup” by simmering yellow dock root (and sometimes dandelion root) in water until it reduces to a slightly thick decoction. Then she strains the roots, adds blackstrap molasses, and simmers for a little longer. She stores it in the refrigerator and eats a spoonful or more daily.
The notion is that blackstrap molasses contains iron while yellow dock root releases iron from the liver and improves liver function. It works wonders for her. She can go from having so little energy that she drapes over the couch sighing to feeling normal and healthy again in no time.
I personally find the smell alone of yellow dock root can cause me to gag, but she rather enjoys it, and she claims that combined with the molasses it is delicious. I mention this only because you might want to be aware that some people (like me) don’t care for yellow dock root.
If you don’t like red meat then I’m guessing you don’t like liver, but just in case that’s not the case, then I’ll mention that liver is a good source if iron. As are some seafood such as mussels, clams, and shrimp (and oysters too, but people are picky about oysters.)
But here’s good news: cacao/cocoa/chocolate is high in iron. I’m not certain about the absorbability, but some suggest that it is a good food for increasing iron levels, so I’m assuming that the iron is absorbable enough to be effective.
So maybe some chocolate milk with molasses would be a good tonic! The idea with using yellow dock root as my partner does is that by improving liver function you improve iron utilization, which is more effective than just adding more iron into your body. Presumably when you get your iron levels tested the results show the amount of iron circulating in the body, but it doesn’t give any indication of how much iron may be stored in your liver.
Hope that helps.
To answer your other questions, when I was in the vegan world many people touted the benefits of beets and juicing green, leafy vegetables or wheatgrass as good for iron levels. I did see good benefits, but I’ve never had any anemia. Part of that comes from the fact that I’ve lived in Colorado much of my life where the altitude tends to make the blood more efficient.
I’m a big fan of Earth Clinic and its testimonials from everyday folk and I really like researching, so I recommend it a lot. :) I am also all about the adage “Give a man a fish…Teach a man to fish…” and giving you some resources to look at and decide for your own health what works for you. Here’s their anemia page.
@butterball Dried fruits contain Iron too. What also helps getting Iron levels up is by pairing it with a Vitamin C food. So for instance tomatosoup/sauce with some Blackstrap Molasses.
I don’t know if you eat shrimp,but this video recipe for Blackstrap Molasses Shrimp(I suppose you can also make the dish with a substitute for shrimp or as a vegetable stir-fry?) is an Iron bomb dish,especially if you substitute the brown sugar for raw cane sugar…then you’ll get iron from molasses,cane sugar and shrimp and the onion&other veggies contain vitamin C aiding in the absorption of iron.:)
As I mentioned earlier,dried fruits such as dates,raisins,prunes,apricots are also supposed to contain quite some iron. On the site of Peatarian someone posted a recipe to make fruitbars,to grab when you’re on the run, with dried fruits and the OJ in it with the Vit.C would increase the absorption.
http://peatarian.com/13316/recipe-fruit-bars
http://peatarian.com/13316/recipe-fruit-bars
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