How many licks would it take? Can the iron in bars even be processed by the body? Can you do this for other minerals?

  • @Diabolo96@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    91 year ago

    Some kind of iron piece is given in some African countries to fight iron deficiency by putting it in the food while it’s cooking, so it works.

  • Davel23
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    71 year ago

    I saw someone do a demonstration once, they took a box of “iron-fortified” breakfast cereal, dumped it into a bowl, then ran a magnet through it. The magnet picked up some of the dust from the bottom of the bowl, that dust being the tiny iron particles that were added to the cereal to “fortify” it.

    • Ech
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      1 year ago

      I’m not sure why you’re putting those words in quotes as if they’re incorrect.

      • Davel23
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        11 year ago

        I put them in quotes as the word has no objective meaning as applied to a breakfast cereal, it’s simply a marketing term. I did not intend to imply that ingested iron particles are not a valid source of iron for human biology.

        • Ech
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          11 year ago

          Fair enough. Personally I don’t think the words are an issue. It’s not medically applicable, but it’s just cereal, so *shrug*

  • Smuuthbrane
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    51 year ago

    And which is more bioavailable, metallic iron or iron oxide? Do we want to lick clean iron or rusty iron??

    • tygerprints
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      41 year ago

      You can get all the iron you need from vegetables and certain meat or even taking supplements. There’s no need to go about eating rusty metal. In fact, my doctor has advised me not to eat nails. I have to trust what he says, he’s printed out several impressive medical degrees.

  • Unaware7013
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    01 year ago

    When my wife was pregnant, a buddy gave her an old cast iron pan and told her to heat applesauce in it. Said it should help her iron deficiency, too bad we’re to add to have remembered…

    • BaroqueInMind
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      01 year ago

      a buddy gave her an old cast iron pan and told her to hear applesauce in it

      Did she mention how the apple sauce sounded like? Why even involve the cast iron pan, and just simply squirt some directly into the ear canal?

  • @MoodyRaincloud@feddit.nl
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    01 year ago

    I’ve read once that eating iron won’t do anything for your iron intake, but for example sticking some rusty nails through an apple for a while and then eating the apple would.

  • tygerprints
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    -11 year ago

    This is the reason prisoners are so healthy and full of vim and vitality. (right…)

    UMMM I don’t think you can get iron in your diet this way. First off, it’s unlikely you’re going to find a bar of pure iron anyway, since most metal bars are composites of many minerals.

    Also, the iron has to specifically be in an ingestible form so the liver can process it. An iron bar ain’t a lollipop. (maybe that should be a slogan for something).

    When they say that cereal has added iron, they really mean that actual bits of iron are added (very tiny particles). You can use a magnet to pull some of them out, they’re little iron filings.

    So if you file the bar down first and eat the filings, MAYBE it would contribute to your iron intake. But - why not just grab some milk and eat the cereal instead?