Video

Transcript

well guys i hate to break this to you but  spinach is the absolute worst source of iron  

and i know you’ve been watching popeye the sailor  man and all this canned spinach is going to make  

you really really strong because of the iron  when in fact it’s not going to do that there’s  

two sources of iron there is heme iron  and there is non-heme iron non-heme iron  

is in plants it has a low bioavailability in  other words it doesn’t absorb that well so if  

you have a certain amount of iron and spinach  if you’re lucky you’re going to only absorb 1.4  

of that amount of iron so you’re going to need to  eat 10 times more spinach to get the same amount  

of iron you would get if you consumed something  that gave you heme iron which is from animal  

products the bio availability with heme iron is 20  but the problem is even if you were to consume a  

lot more there’s some other reasons why your body  is not going to be able to use that iron spinach  

and by the way swiss chard have extremely high  amounts of oxalates okay oxalates bind with  

the iron as well as calcium making iron almost  entirely unavailable to you so not only do we have  

a non-heme source of iron which is very poor with  the absorption rate but we also have this oxalate  

right here don’t worry it gets worse also plants  including spinach are very high in polyphenols  

which also block the absorption of iron now you  might say well i’m going to get my iron from beans  

or legumes or seeds or nuts or grains right well  the problem with that is they contain phytates  

which block iron zinc calcium and other minerals  so i have nothing against spinach or swiss chard  

i think they’re great vegetables as  long as you’re not pre-exposed to  

kidney stones or you have a sensitivity to  oxalates and you can even steam it to reduce  

the oxalates and sometimes someone might say that  well the spinach also has a lot of vitamin c it’s  

going to help me absorb the iron well if you  steam it to lower the amount of oxalates you  

also kill off a great majority of the vitamin c  thereby not allowing you to get the benefits of  

that extra absorption but spinach and swiss chard  have additional health benefits for sure but not  

in the area of iron so what does have the best  source of heme iron number one clams then liver  

kidney and other organ meats oysters octopus  mussels red meat fish especially fatty fish  

and eggs and as a last point if you  consume plants with these animal products

that have heme iron that alone will increase  the absorption of iron in the spinach or plants  

all right thanks for watching before you go  if you have a question about a product or  

you’re new to keto and you want to know  how to begin keto or you’re on keto and  

you need a debug because it’s not going as smooth  i have a keto consultant standing by to help you  

this is just for the people in the us hopefully in  the future we’ll be able to answer everyone’s call  

but i put the number down below  so you can call and get some help