Preparedness for when

thriftwizard

DD2 - technically pescatarian, but nearly completely veggie - had issues with low iron levels a while back. We addressed this with lots of leafy greens, lentils, chickpeas & tofu (a far safer alternative to quorn) and a Lucky Iron Fish which has done the trick; she's no longer anaemic.

Incidentally, the phytic acid present in most (underprepared) cereals can hinder your body's uptake of iron. Traditionally cereals are usually soaked before use, or fermented, which removes a good proportion of this, but modern bread is made to rise much too quickly, so this doesn't happen. It also contains far more yeast, as well as "flour improvers", none of which are particularly helpful!

mardatha

Nuts are high in fat Cappela and I can't eat them and I have gallstones.

Cappella

Thanks Mardatha. I didn't realise you couldn't eat nuts with gallstones. They are high in fat I know, but I'm allowed a very small handful a day (6 to 8) on the cardio diet I'm on.
Apologies for the mistake.

greenbee

Dark chocolate is high in iron. So are chickpeas...

Living_proof

I believe watercress is extremely high in iron, and it makes a good soup with just some chicken stock and a spud. Spinach, nettle, that kind of thing as well.

NewShadow

greenbee wrote: »

Dark chocolate is high in iron. So are chickpeas...

Living_proof wrote: »

I believe watercress is extremely high in iron, and it makes a good soup with just some chicken stock and a spud. Spinach, nettle, that kind of thing as well.

Out of that list, I know the one I'd choose... :EasterBun

mardatha

Same as me, a nice big green plate of lovely nettle soup! HONEST!

Karmacat

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: I like that

GreyQueen

'Course you would, Mar, 'course you would.:rotfl:

Tomorrow, if I remember, I shall harvest the young nettles. You rinse them and put them in a pan with no more water than what is on them after rinsing. Cook for a few minutes then squeeze with a spoon to remove excess moisture, place on a warmed plate and slather with butter.

Extremely tasty and very high in iron. This was the traditional Spring pick-me-up for country people left depleted by late winter storecupboard foods and the hungry gap.

I was reading an archaeology magazine today and it was reporting on a skeleton found with rickets, in the Hebrides, a woman who lived in Neolithic times (circa 3,000 BC). It's the first known case of rickets in the UK. They remarked how surprising it was to find that this young woman had been disabled by something which could have been prevented by a bit of sunlight and wondered if she had been a domestic slave kept indoors or was kept in some kind of smothering costume as part of a religious role.

One thing which set me thinking was the remark in the article that a diet with oily fish in, which abounded in the waters about this settlement, would have easily prevented rickets. But that the midden evidence etc shows that these early-Neolithic farming communities by the sea weren't actually eating fish.

I suppose it's common knowledge that human health took an enormous plunge when we switched from gathering and hunting to agriculture. We're still much smaller and weaker (inc brains being smaller) than our ancestors from the Old Stone Age. Sobering thought, hey?

thriftwizard

Interesting! We're a very adaptable species, and I think it's possible to live on a diet that would have dieticians having palpitations - think of the Inuit and the Maasai - but we in the West have really narrowed down what most people eat to scarily few foods, and some of those I'd hesitate to call food at all.

However, there are a number of people who limit their own diets & lifestyles drastically, for whatever reason; two of my kids were waaay beyond "picky" as youngsters. One's still daft as a brush & tries to live on pizza alone whenever possible, but the other's taken a real scientific interest in food & diet & now eats a widely-based & well-balanced diet that doesn't happen to include any meat. At her worst, five years ago, she hardly went outside at all if she could help it & certainly wouldn't have had any truck with nasty dangerous sunshine; both of them have been recognised as being "somewhere" on the autism spectrum, one now with a fairly definite diagnosis. So I can't help wondering whether this poor young lady 5,000 years ago may have been of a similar disposition, but without the tools & information available that might have helped her.