The Australian Vegan Magazine — May-June 2017

as 300 per cent? Onions and garlic can

increase availability of iron from grains and

legumes by 50 per cent, and sprouting your

legumes before you cook them significantly

improves iron availability. Hummus is a

classic example of an iron-rich dish full of

co-factors that enhance iron-absorption.

Iron-rich seeds have great versatility in the

kitchen and can be whizzed up with fruit in

of whole foods when whole foods are freely

available to the general public and can’t be

patented. Who is going to bother funding

that, aside from governments? And it’s a lot

easier to test a single nutrient than to study

the connections between multiple nutrients:

science just doesn’t lend itself well to the

study of holism because there are too

many variables to account for, and how can

you study something properly if you can’t

isolate it from its larger environment?

Research funders want to identify

a single ‘active’ ingredient that can be

isolated, patented, concentrated and sold

back to us with the story that this artificial

drug-like substance is somehow superior

to the synergistic magic of wholefoods. No

supplement could possibly replicate the

nutrient complexity of whole plant foods,

with diverse nutrients in perfect ratio with

one another, in a distinctly recognisable

form our human body has evolved along-

side of since the beginning of our time.

Supplements are vital, and they play an

important role in correcting deficiencies

and protecting those at risk of deficiencies,

but they most definitely cannot be thought

of as preferable to real food. And just as

iron supplements can have a corrosive

pro-oxidant effect on the body, so too can

supplemental vitamin C (ascorbic acid).

Enhancing iron absorption

As Dr Greger says in his best-selling

book How Not to Die, the amount of vitamin

C from a single orange can enhance iron

absorption “as much as three- to sixfold, so

those trying to boost their iron absorption

should reach for some fruit instead of a cup

of tea.” Vitamin C is found in most fruits

and vegetables. Some of the richer sources

are broccoli, cabbage, kale, parsley,

capsicum, black currants, guava, kiwifruit,

mango, orange, pineapple, rockmelon,

strawberry, berries, citrus fruit in general,

tomatoes, brussels sprouts, cauliflower,

snow peas, pawpaw, and melons.

Did you know that the citric acids in

citrus fruits also enhance iron absorption?

Or that carotenoids, such as the beta-

carotenes in yellow, red and orange foods,

can increase iron absorption by as much

of nutrients. To illustrate, you might be

thinking you could simply pop a vitamin

C pill with meals to enhance your iron

absorption, but this would be ignoring the

fact that synergism also applies to the

vitamin C in this lover’s tryst, not just the iron.

Have you heard of the book Whole?

The subtitle is Rethinking the Science of

Nutrition by T. Colin Campbell, PhD, with

Howard Jacobson, PhD. In Chapter 11,

titled Reductionist Supplementation,

Colin tells a story about Dr Liu, a research

colleague who was curious about exactly

what it was in apples that made them

healthy for us. Dr Liu and his team started

by focusing on the vitamin C content of

apples and its antioxidant effect, and they

discovered that the vitamin C-like activity

from 100mg of whole apple was an

astounding 263 times as potent as the

same amount of isolated chemical!

“Said another way, the specific chemical

we refer to as vitamin C accounts for much

less than 1 per cent of the vitamin C-like

activity in the apple – a minuscule amount.

The other 99-plus per cent of this activity

is due to other vitamin C-like chemicals in

the apple, the possible ability of vitamin C

to be much more effective in context of the

whole apple than it is when consumed in

an isolated form, or both...

“If we just take an isolated vitamin C

pill, we miss out on the cast of ‘supporting

characters’ that may give vitamin C its

potency. Even if we add many of those

characters into the pill too, which some

manufacturers have done with bioflavonoids,

we are still assuming that whatever is in

the apple and not the pill is somehow

unimportant... it is now clear that there are

hundreds, if not thousands of chemicals in

apples, each of which, in turn, may affect

thousands of reactions and metabolic

systems.”

In synergism, the supporting characters

for the nutritional star of any show are

often referred to as co-factors. Vitamin C

is a famous co-factor for iron, but there

are many, many more. Science has barely

scratched the surface when it comes to

understanding synergism. There isn’t much

point, after all, in researching the synergy

Dietary iron sources

Rich food sources of iron include

legumes, tofu, nuts, seeds, wholegrains

(esp. amaranth and quinoa), dried fruits

and dark green leafy vegetables. While

the nutrient levels in seaweeds are often

very high, our oceans are contaminated

with chemicals and heavy metals, so

seafoods probably shouldn’t be relied

upon as a primary source of nutrition.

The iron quantities in the foods listed

below are averages, as the nutrient

content in any food can vary dramatically

depending on variables such as the variety

grown and the conditions the food is

grown under, not to mention the effects

of processing, storage and transport.

• 8g dried weight kombu............................22.1 mg


• 60g dark chocolate (70-85% cacao)............7.1 mg


• 1 cup cooked lentils.....................................7 mg


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• 8g dried weight dulse...............................6.4 mg


• ¼ cup whole sesame seeds.......................5.3 mg


• 1 cup amaranth.........................................5.2 mg


• 1 cup cooked chickpeas................................5 mg


• 1 cup of parsley............................................4 mg


• ½ cup cooked spinach..............................3.3 mg


• 1 cup of quinoa.........................................2.8 mg


• 2 tbs tahini paste......................................2.7 mg


• 2 tbs pumpkin seeds.................................2.5 mg


• ½ cup of prunes........................................2.4 mg


• ½ cup tempeh..........................................2.4 mg


• 1 cup cooked pumpkin..............................2.4 mg


• ½ cup black olives....................................2.3 mg


• 1 cup oatmeal...........................................2.2 mg


• 1 cup of kale.............................................1-2 mg


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• 1 cup fresh chopped basil..........................1.4 mg


• 1 cup cooked broccoli...................................1 mg


• 1 avocado.....................................................1 mg


• 2 tbs cashews..............................................1 mg


• ¼ cup dried apricot, coconut or pears...........1 mg


• 1 cup strawberries....................................0.6 mg

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