#46 Iron Secrets: Unlocking the Power of Dried Fruits

Are you feeling fatigued or low on energy? It's time to unlock the secret to boosting your iron levels with the power of dried fruits! In this episode, we explore how simple dietary changes can lead to significant improvements in your overall health. Dive into the science behind why dried fruits, like apricots and figs, are packed with essential iron, making them an excellent snack choice for anyone battling low energy. 

We discuss how these fruits are not only nutrient-dense but are also incredibly convenient. Perfect for busy lifestyles, these easy-to-carry snacks can be enjoyed anytime, anywhere, helping you to maintain your iron intake without the hassle of complicated meal prep. Plus, learn how pairing dried fruits with vitamin C sources can dramatically enhance iron absorption. 

With practical tips and a deep dive into their health benefits, this episode is packed with valuable insights. We share our enthusiasm for promoting better health through diet, with easy habits you can adopt today. By taking small steps towards improving your nutrition, you can experience elevated energy levels and a more vibrant life.

Ready to take charge of your health? Listen to our episode and discover how incorporating dried fruits into your daily routine can lead you to feel your best! Don’t forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review to help spread the word!

Chapters

• 0:26 Welcome Back to the Wellness Podcast
• 15:31 Understanding Iron Issues and Anemia
• 58:15 Why Dried Fruits Are Beneficial for Iron Support
• 1:57:35 Pairing Iron with Vitamin C for Better Absorption
• 3:29:41 Comprehensive Treatment for Low Iron Levels
• 18:15:44 Maximising Iron Benefits with Dried Fruits

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello, hello everybody, and welcome back to my wellness podcast. I am your host, star Friedenberg, and welcome back to the we Can't Make this Sugar, honey, ice and Tea podcast, or should I say Shittake podcast. And today, pretty straightforward, I'm getting a lot of people in the clinic at the moment suffering with iron issues, anemia for various reasons, whether it's hormonal related, whether it's lifestyle related, dietary related, predisposition, genetics, whatever reason. I'm getting the combination of them. And one really fun, interesting fact is that dried fruits are actually really, really good for iron support. So what I'm getting, uh, is quite often is people saying I didn't know that, and so I thought let me just make a little short, uh, hopefully five minute podcast just to explain. You know why dried fruits are really good for iron support, amongst the other things? Um, because, of course, one of the biggest, trickiest ones is you know people's iron levels are really low but they're not open for either you know they can't eat meat because there's an allergy or maybe belief system, or you know values about the harm that's being created onto you know animals, etc. So, you know, just trying to work around that and a fantastic one is just incorporating dried fruits into your diet, which is super easy, very accessible, great because you can have them as snacks as well, especially because a lot of people I know who do suffer don't often have a big appetite and struggle to eat a lot, so that's really helpful as well. So, and the good thing is, it can also give a lot of extra benefits because it is a fruit, so it can give a bit more energy and can help as well. But one of the biggest, most you know things I always have to say is you, in order to have better absorption of iron, you need to pair it with a vitamin C, so citrus fruits help support that. Maybe juice. So when you are eating, you know if you are eating meats or something that's supportive with iron, please try and sort of pair that you know with a glass or a shot of juice or something you know, with a glass or a shot of juice or something or, of course, taking a supplement if that's possible. And sort of what we do in the clinic, sort of as I do in the clinic, is sort of a package of you know creating an outcome, of we start doing some gut health corrections because that can help to support blood flow in the body to go around everywhere, because that can help to support blood flow in the body to go around everywhere.

Speaker 1: 2:51

Often there's a parasite or bacteria that's consuming your iron. So, no matter what you do, your iron levels are low. So we can obviously eradicate them by going on a parasite cleanse and protocol, which is often one of the symptoms. If you feel like you're abnormally low energy, you're very pale, something's not right could be an indication that you may have parasites as well. So, yes, so that's what happens. And another very common symptom is you crave ice, which is quite interesting. So to repair that, so we reset the gut so that the blood and the blood in the body can improve the absorption of the food as well can improve as well.

Speaker 1: 3:29

And then we move on to doing a series of iron infusions through a drip and then my own personalized protocol where we do then injections to support red blood cell formation, and then, of course, we get you on to improving your diet as well as getting you on a daily supplement as well, so you can really really get completely around it. So you don't have to suffer with this and the biggest one, especially in the UK, with these really, you know, long escalators on the underground and just you know, having to lift your legs just to get up those escalator stairs just feels like your legs are just dead weight. You don't have to suffer with that anymore. We can get your energy up, your mood, your mindset, and get you into daily activities, such as going back to gym, which can and does offer so many significant health benefits. So you don't have to suffer. But like a quick, easy fix, like I say, is just trying to get these daily little habits in. It's just about what can we do?

Speaker 1: 4:31

Okay, throw a little bit of dried fruit. You know ain't going to hurt nobody, um, and it's quite delicious as well, which often health isn't. So take the victories of when you can. Uh, so, yes, so dried fruits are good for iron support because they are nutrient dense and contain significant amounts of non-heme iron. It's a form of iron found in plant-based foods. So, again, very vegan friendly, if you will, and hence why they're beneficial. I'm going to give you five reasons why, okay. So number one it has high iron content. So dried fruits like apricots, raisins, prunes, figs are naturally high in iron, and another big one that I'm really, really a fan of is dates, right.

Speaker 1: 5:20

So of course, you need to see if that's something that one give it a go, get various ones. I always recommend to get the fruits in isolation and just have a little couple of nibbles of each, just to one, see if there's a taste preference or as well, as I call it, the obsession. If you eat one, you're like, oh my god, this is changing my life, because your body really, really needs it and it'll have certain other components within it that can support you. Um, and it's a big thing. And then, of course, because I've studied some modalities from the middle east and um, the culture of islam, so I have a lot of muslim clients and the big thing is that after a fast or anything, once they are allowed to start eating again, they always introduce their diet with two dates first when they break fast. So there's a huge thing around that, from prophet muhammad as well, and so I highly recommend that because it's also culturally followed in the world.

Speaker 1: 6:16

But of course, you get all different types of dates and you can get good ones, you can get bad quality ones. But if you want to get the nice ones, which I personally get from M&S is, I get organic medjool dates and they're really delicious. They're a fantastic substitute for sugar as well. So when you're on a health-based diet, you can use these you know as where you integrate it. If you want to bake you know no bake cakes or vegan dishes, balls, or you know even a really delicious yet healthy dessert would be like making you know the inverted commas snickers bars, where you can do like a slice of banana, then you can do a date and then you can just top it with a little bit of peanut butter, throw it in. I probably I've said the order wrong, but put a date as the base, then you put a slice of banana, then you top it with a little bit of peanut butter, put in the freezer, freeze it.

Speaker 1: 7:15

Once it's set, bring it out, um, do a bain marie so that the hot water and then a bowl on top, melt some dark chocolate, because from 70 percent up, uh, then dark, dark chocolate's really healthy, contains no sugars, really good for many reasons. So cacao is just very powerful healing. It's a very powerful healing ingredient. A lot of polyphenols, so incredible for the gut, lots of magnesium, a lot of B vitamins. So it's just overall good for you. But of course quantity does count, so you can have a good thing but too much of a good thing is a bad thing, right? So once that's done and melted, then you can dip your little frozen parcel in there and then let that go back into the freezer and set and then you can have your little cheat, yet healthy Snickers bars as well.

Speaker 1: 8:04

So you know, dates have really been powerfully in my world, like, have really taken over, and this is the kind of thing we have as a substitute, and, of course, from a good, organic brand that, for me, is predominantly based in the EU is a brand called Biona Biona I don't know how to pronounce it, but that's the way I pronounce it, and when I read the label I'm like Biona, like in Italian, and they have this wonderful product. I don't know other brands, but this is the one I know is date syrup. So it's beautiful, rich, delicious, thick, velvety. It's like honey, very goopy, but it's delicious and you don't need too much. And then, of course, you can have that. And then again, when you're on a diet diet doesn't mean you, you suffer. There are so many fantastic substitutes available out there. So I'm a big, big fan of dates and I'm very fortunate that when my clients break fast and then everybody's like giving dates out to everyone. Then I get a whole bunch and I'm like, yay, I love this. And sometimes they get huge boxes, sometimes I get a couple, but I eat dates every day, so I'm a huge fan of them and, of course, as a gut health practitioner, they're excellent to support digestion as well, good source of fiber.

Speaker 1: 9:22

And then there's a. There's a guy I don't know his name, but my partner follows him on Instagram and I love. Basically what he does is he wears a blood sugar monitor and then he will eat. I think it's upon request now by his fan base, but basically he will take his blood sugar levels and then he will eat something. And then he will go and fast forward the time you know, two to four hours later, something like that and then just basically see how that food has processed in his body and how it has affected his blood sugar level. And what's fascinating to know is that, despite the amount of sugar that dates do have I think this is a date podcast, by the way, I don't know if it's a dried fruit podcast anymore, if I'm gonna get back on track, as I always like to do, um, but basically fascinating thing is that, despite that, dates do contain a high sugar content. Hence you you shouldn't have too many. Two a day max, I would say. But get the big ones, you know, like when you see those things, like doctor says I can have one glass of wine a day and then the glass is like as big as a bath, you know. But anyway, dates don't spike your blood sugar levels, so you don't have that huge high of energy and that huge dip as well. So that's fantastic, fantastic, fantastic to note. So again, a really, really highly recommended uh food source from my, from my recommendation as a gut health practitioner as well. Um, so yeah, now I come back on track.

Speaker 1: 10:49

So dried fruits you know they have a high source of iron content. So I'm just using apricots here as the article that I have written, so it can give you about 2.7 milligrams of iron per hundred. Raisins also offer 1.9 milligrams of iron per hundred, so it's quite good. So number two is it's a concentrated nutrient. So during the drying process, water is removed, of course, which then concentrates the nutrients. So that includes iron, making dried fruits a dense source of this mineral in a smaller serving size.

Speaker 1: 11:26

So again, it's coming back to people like I just don't have an appetite or I don't eat that much or it's really hard because of my my job. You know I can't eat that much, or it's really hard because of my my job. You know I can't eat certain things because it might stink up the office, because people eating from their desk and it's like, fantastic, just get out some dried fruits. You know anyone, you know anyone can do that. Consume it quick to chew, quick to swallow, if you were that rushed, um, so really. And it's very accessible around the shops.

Speaker 1: 11:54

But of course I'll say, try it by organic and just be mindful of the uh preservatives or additives with there if there's added sugars. And the biggest preservative um that is usually common within dried fruits is called sulfites and sulfites are, you know, best to be avoided, but not as easy with these. Uh, with um dried fruits, specifically speaking, you also get them in wine, but you know if you can try get sulfite free, that would be ideal. But of course, once you get something that's more pure, you're you know the lifespan is not long, so you've got to eat them quickly, right? So a lot of people are used to buying processed artificial additives, preservatives in their food sources that they almost get shocked. They're like, oh, my god, this only lasted for a week.

Speaker 1: 12:46

And if you really want to get next level, uh, with this as well, as you can get your own food dryer, like I have, and you can make your own combinations. You know, like this, like I'm gonna just think I just see because of, like, the sliced apples, or banana or mango pieces, dates, etc. You can get your own as well if you want, and then you can just get, you know, a little chefy if you want, if you want me to recommend, because I make personally, uh, it's a south african delicacy called biltong, which is basically it sounds gross but I can't tell you it's bloody delicious. Ask any south african, like we'll start salivating when you talk about about biltong, and the most common one, um, or known one, is beef jerky is, which is an equivalent, but it's not the same, because biltong is just basically meat with salts and herbs and especially, like coriander, herb is used because it's an antifungal, antiparasitic, so something can't happen in terms of compromising the quality of the meat. But with beef jerky, they put a whole bunch of sugar on it. So when a meat dries out in biltong, it's like jerky. They put a whole bunch of sugar on it, so when a meat dries out in biltong it's like blackish kind of color. But beef jerky is like this light pink color. So I eat it sometimes but I don't like it because I can just taste the you know artificial like. Why is it so sweet? Meat should not be sweet, in my opinion, but of course you know, each to their own. But it is a really good source of protein as well, if you're open to that. So of course, when you have a food dryer, you can do whatever you want in the food dryer. So you know, just keeping your options open, right. And if you want to know more about the plutong and how it looks, I actually made a video, I think last year or the year before, somewhere a long time ago, just showing the process of how I do it and what it looks like, and it's really really, really, really, really easy, because that's all I'm about. If you want to do a million things, you've got to get the things to be short, sweet and simple, right.

Speaker 1: 14:43

Number three vitamin C pairing. So some dried fruits, like dried apricots, may also contain vitamin C, which enhances the absorption of non-heme iron in the body. So, like I say, which enhances the absorption of non-heme iron in the body. So, like I say, whenever you're thinking about meat or anything, try have vitamin C, either a tablet, either a juice or fruit or something combined. So you know, the biggest thing I think of is when I see those carnivore individuals on socials like they have this big piece of steak or fillet or t-bone etc. And then they'll pair it with some raspberries or blueberries or um, what I like to do is, whenever I do, I always have half a lemon and then I'll squeeze it all over. I love the taste of uh, lemon anyway.

Speaker 1: 15:30

To start with, I know I know it's not everyone's cup of tea should I say a cup of citrus tea, but it is really, really good for you. So then it's just just trying to create a practice going. I know this is good for me and more often than not you'll actually find that your body really likes it because your body really needs it. So just in that case. Number four it's also rich in other nutrients. So dried fruits are also rich in other nutrients. So what's really nice is that it's not just one thing we're targeting, we're trying to do one, we have a purpose, but with that there's a lot of bonus benefits that come with it. So dried fruits are often packed with other beneficial nutrients. So you have your fiber, which makes me happy as a gut health practitioner potassium, antioxidants, which support overall health and may improve digestion and helps the body better absorb iron, and, of course, once you start to see the improvements and you have more energy, you have more capabilities of doing other things and there's just such a positive cascade of effects because then you start to be more open and then more energy, and then once you start getting better, you just get much better because you have more energy will mindset power to do that.

Speaker 1: 16:43

Number five, as I've sort of repeated in various ways, is convenience. Right, they're very easy to store, they're very easy to carry making them, which makes them a convenient and happy snack option for maintaining iron levels on the go. So there's really no excuse with this one. I'm really sorry, but just so you know, there's no excuse for this one and it's accessible in so many stores. But, like I say, try get organic and try get them from the organic health store. It does mean that they're going to be a little bit more, but also know that you don't have to have that much as well.

Speaker 1: 17:16

I sort of use the, the measuring tool of the palm of your hand, like as much as the palm of your hand, that's enough, and not creating a huge ant heel amount, just sort of like one layer and that's enough, sort of. If you can close your hand and nothing falls out, that's enough. You don't need a big amount, which is fantastic, and then you can stagger that over the day as well, maybe two snacks as well, or, of course, you can put it on top of if you're going to have some granola, or you know, granola and yogurt, yogurt, and then you can have some of that there. So, just seeing where you can pair it, add it where you can. So, to conclude, to maximize the benefits of iron from dried fruits, pair them with foods that are high in vitamin C, such as oranges, strawberries, or avoid consuming them with calcium rich foods or beverages like milk during the same mealtime, as calcium can inhibit iron absorption, which is another thing people don't know. So by incorporating dried fruits into your diet, you can boost your iron intake and support healthy blood production and energy levels, which is the biggest goal I think the whole planet is after. It's just more energy, please, all right.

Speaker 1: 18:31

So, like I say today, this one's short and sweet. It's pretty straightforward, straight to the point. But you know, let me know what you do and if you find that this helps. But of course, like I say, there's a you know I'm very passionate about uh, iron absorption in the body and anemia just a close theme to me about blood. So if you want to know more and you want to figure out how to help yourself better and just basically try attack it at all fronts, do contact me directly, book in the free online 15-minute consultation then I can discuss, you know, with your health concerns and what's going on, where you're at and what medication you're on. Then we can do a review and then just basically create an outcome protocol and just manage you, get you better, do a short period of detoxification, which can be done in person or online, so it doesn't matter wherever you are in the world and then we just get you on to regulating and into a stage of maintenance and then that meets my purpose of working from a prevention medicine based protocol.

Speaker 1: 19:36

Right, all right, everybody. Thank you so much for listening to this episode today. I'm wishing you well wherever you are in the world happy mindset, happy day, happy attack to the week, um, and just you know, do your best. And summer is coming and we're all happy and we're taking one stride at a time, one day at a time, and every day there is a victory. All right, wherever you're in the world, looking forward to seeing you next week or listening to me next week and wishing you well. If there's any specific subjects you're interested in, please do email me. Happy to talk about them as well. Sending lots of love. Have a nice day over and out. Bye.