Hi, Loves!
You already know that I am purposefully increasing my dietary iron intake [click on the link to read more]; so every meal is going to count. It is my educated guess that B12 deficiency that started to set in during the last year, had caused iron imbalance as well, since my iron levels were fine last year. I also mentioned in the last post that there is a possibility that the iron numbers were slightly lower than usual because I gave blood the day after my menses ended. Although I am presently working on ordering raw/vegan iron supplement to partially supplement my dietary intake, until my levels are back to normal, I am paying specific attention to every meal I eat.
I have always been a numbers person, loving anything to do with math and science, so this personal iron intake experience is pure fun to me.
As of this morning [read the last post: Pumping Iron], I had already injected over 40% of the recommended daily iron intake. For Lunch I made a couple of iron-full treats: Iron Sandwiches and Dark Chocolate…. mmmmmmmm!
[click on the image to enlarge]
I made a couple of whole wheat sandwiches:
- 2 slices of home-made organic wholewheat bread [met 6-10% iron DV]
- 1 1/2 cup raw spinach [met around 5% of iron DV]
- Bell pepper–great source of vitamin C, needed for iron absorption {spinach carries vitamin C as well]
- Thin slices of white onion–great source of chromium and other wonderful nutrients
- 1 tsp thyme [met ~10% iron DV]
So far, that put me at around 66% of my iron DV, but get this… I also indulged in a little bit of dark 73% chocolate (YUM!); munching on 8 sections with delicious tea.; which gave me additional ~33% of iron DV. [Not to worry, I don't eat chocolate very often, so this truly was a treat 
.]
At the end of my lunch, my body cells were comfortably and indulgently swimming in about 99% of recommended iron intake. Not bad, huh?! And the day is not over yet. On my menu is another green smoothie at the end of the day. [By the way the Iron Woman Green Smoothie (about 25 opz of it) kept me full from morning all the way through lunch. Fortified with all of the seeds and grains I added to it, it met all of my nutritional needs for a few hours.]
Food as Fuel
With my Iron Odyssey in mind, I hope it helps many of you approach your every meal as means to refuel and restore your body too. I think our society has become so pleasure minded when it comes to food, that the true purpose for food has been totally forgotten and lost. Although plant based foods are extremely tasteful, in spite of what junk eaters might think–just ask my taste buds–each plant, each vegetable and fruit, have a working purpose in restoring and meeting our bodies’ nutritional needs. The food was created to be fuel for our bodies, as much as gasoline is to serve in fueling the cars we drive.
Would you put diesel into a Lexus? Try it and let me know how far you get. Yet we do exactly the same thing when it comes to our foods. As a society, we take the junkiest of foods and shove it into our bodies, clogging their ability to operate the way God intended.
source: lovingthebike.com
In doing this, why do we expect our bodies to be healthy and operate as well oiled machines? We refuse it the simple building blocks it needs and then expect to live in perfect health. What an irony!
Our body regrows cells every single day, using the foods we eat as building blocks. If the building materials are cheap and dirty, so will be the byproduct of their work–broken down cells. The junk and genetically modified/engineered, as well as conventially grown foods don’t stop there–the foods that you eat will actually end up altering your DNA, creating a faulty code; which, when copied and passed down to your offsprings will set them up for a life of struggle and health failure. Is it really worth the value we put on what we were conditioned to think as “good food”? Or is it possible that it will be worth out time and health to rethink what was passed down to us, and perhaps go back to the basics–as far back as the Garden of Eden, where a man and a woman were placed to draw their physical prosperity from plants?
“And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food.” [Genesis 1:29]
So, take a moment right this second and make a list of the foods you eat, then look over them and evaluate to see if each meal that you put into your body does something good for it. If not–FIRE IT! Yes, fire the unproductive worker [that bad, lazy, good for nothing food], because the money that you spend on it, is going to waste, and instead “hire” a new food, which will do its job and will be worth the money you spend on it.
Deal?
