Anonymous wrote:A four year old is supposed to get about 10 mg of iron a day.
The RDA for iron is 18 mg.
http://www.fda.gov/food/guidanceregulation/guidancedocumentsregulatoryinformation/labelingnutrition/ucm064928.htm
So when they say a serving of chicken has 4% of iron, you should about double that for your daughter, because she doesn't need 18 mg, only about half that. So a serving of those chicken nuggets have about 8% of her iron requirement (still not a lot, and as you say, she usually eats half a serving).
Another source of iron is to cook acidic foods (tomato sauce, etc) or scrambled eggs in an iron skillet. Cooking in an iron skillet can double or triple the amount of iron in the food!
Iron from meat fish and chicken is heme iron and your body absorbs more of it, than iron from vegetables, fruit, grains and eggs. Eat more vitamin C at the same time as your meal, and your body will absorb more iron from non-heme sources.
Anonymous wrote:Red meat, so meatballs or meatloaf
Anonymous wrote:A four year old is supposed to get about 10 mg of iron a day.
The RDA for iron is 18 mg.
http://www.fda.gov/food/guidanceregulation/guidancedocumentsregulatoryinformation/labelingnutrition/ucm064928.htm
So when they say a serving of chicken has 4% of iron, you should about double that for your daughter, because she doesn't need 18 mg, only about half that. So a serving of those chicken nuggets have about 8% of her iron requirement (still not a lot, and as you say, she usually eats half a serving).
Another source of iron is to cook acidic foods (tomato sauce, etc) or scrambled eggs in an iron skillet. Cooking in an iron skillet can double or triple the amount of iron in the food!
Iron from meat fish and chicken is heme iron and your body absorbs more of it, than iron from vegetables, fruit, grains and eggs. Eat more vitamin C at the same time as your meal, and your body will absorb more iron from non-heme sources.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:How old is your child? Does she have an iron deficiency? If not, I wouldn't worry so much. Children don't need huge amounts of iron -- just what is proportional to their size.
She is 4 and has no iron deficiency that I know of. I am asking about that because we had her well visit last week and the doctor asked how is her iron intake and I said she eats some type of meat at least once a day. But I got kind of curious….
How does iron work in the body? Do we need a daily intake or just to keep a certain level? What I mean is, if I don't eat any or very little iron the whole week, but on Friday I eat some beef liver - does that make up for it?
I am just wondering if it is something I have to worry everyday and start serving read meat often or we can just keep doing what we have been doing….
Why don't you google some phrase along the lines of "what foods have iron?" and then look at the results and see which of those foods your children would like, and then serve those? Meat may have iron, but it also serves a dose of high cholesterol.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Do you have anything against red meat?
Besides the price? No! It is delicious. But we eat mostly chicken with the occasional red meat and fish.