The Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for iron for premenopausal women is 18mg per day, but most women are only consuming about 12mg per day. And to complicate things, depending on how heavy your period is, and if you’re an athlete, you may require higher levels only easily achieved via supplementation. So how do we calculate how much iron we’re eating?

Calculating iron intake

I use Cronometer a lot in my practice as it’s a fun way to calculate all the nutrients that a patient is getting in their diet. Here is a small list of food that meets the minimum daily intake for iron with plant-based foods. It’s basically a delicious salad with a little bit of dark chocolate as a dessert. In retrospect, I would also add in some red pepper, or another vitamin C-rich food to aid with iron absorption.