An Iron-Rich Postpartum Meal Built for Absorption

You can build a beautifully iron-rich meal and still change how much of that iron your body absorbs by what you eat and drink alongside it. Almost nobody is told this, and postnatal women in particular live on tea.

So this is a bowl built around absorption as well as iron content, because the amount of iron in the food and the amount your body can use are not quite the same thing.

Why iron matters after birth, and not for the reason you'd assume

The usual assumption is that breastfeeding drains your iron. It doesn't to any great extent. In fact, Australian iron requirements are set lower during lactation, partly on the assumption that menstruation hasn't yet returned.

The reason iron deserves attention after birth is often everything that came before the feeding.

Pregnancy asks considerably more of your iron stores. Birth involves blood loss, sometimes a significant amount, and some women begin pregnancy with low stores already.

Which makes iron-rich food worth paying attention to. Not as a treatment for anything, just as part of feeding yourself well after birth.

There are two kinds of iron, and they don't behave the same

Haem iron is found in animal foods, particularly meat, and is generally absorbed more efficiently.

Non-haem iron is the form found in plant foods such as lentils, beans, spinach, tofu and fortified grains. Its absorption varies much more depending on what else is in the meal.

Here's where it gets useful.

Eating meat alongside plant sources of iron can help your body absorb more of the non-haem iron in the meal. Vitamin C can increase its absorption too.

Which is why beef and lentils in the same bowl isn't arbitrary, and why the capsicum and lemon aren't there simply for colour.

The beef gives you a readily absorbed source of haem iron while also helping with the plant iron alongside it. The lentils bring their own iron, fibre and substance. The capsicum and fresh lemon bring vitamin C into the same meal.

The recipe is the lesson.

The cup of tea problem

Tea and coffee contain compounds called polyphenols that can reduce the absorption of non-haem iron when they're consumed with a meal.

Which is slightly inconvenient when tea is also one of the primary food groups of early motherhood.

You don't need to give it up.

If iron is something you're paying attention to, having tea or coffee between meals rather than alongside an iron-rich meal is a useful adjustment. Even leaving an hour or so after eating can reduce the interference.

The point isn't to optimise every mouthful.

It's simply to give the iron-rich meal you already made a slightly better chance to do its job.

The bowl

One pan, about forty minutes, and it freezes beautifully in single portions.

It can also be eaten with a spoon, standing up, which is the relevant test.

It's beef mince and lentils in a warm spiced tomato base, with capsicum, spinach and plenty of fresh lemon at the end. Familiar enough to eat repeatedly, substantial enough to count as dinner, and uncomplicated enough that making a second batch doesn't feel like an undertaking.

Cook it on batch day. Freeze most of it.

Then it's there for the evenings when cooking is out of the question, which this year may be quite a few of them.

Iron-Forward Beef & Lentil Bowl

Serves 4 to 6
10 minutes to prepare
30 minutes to cook
Freezes for up to 3 months

Method

1. Heat the olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Cook the onion until soft and translucent, about five minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another minute.

2. Add the mince, breaking it up as it cooks. Brown it properly for around eight minutes without stirring constantly. This is where the flavour comes from.

3. Stir through the cumin, paprika and tomato paste. Cook for another minute, until it smells like something.

4. Add the capsicum, diced tomatoes, lentils and stock. Simmer uncovered for around 20 minutes, until thickened.

5. Remove from the heat and stir through the spinach until just wilted. Season with salt and pepper.

6. Squeeze fresh lemon generously over each bowl just before serving.

Notes

The lemon isn't just garnish. Vitamin C helps your body absorb the non-haem iron in the lentils and spinach, so be generous and add it at the end.

If iron is something you're paying attention to, leave an hour or so between the meal and your tea or coffee.

For a vegetarian version, replace the mince with a second tin of lentils and 200 g of finely chopped mushrooms, browned well. You lose the haem iron from the beef, so the vitamin C alongside the meal becomes particularly useful. Be generous with the capsicum and lemon.

For freezing, cool and portion the meal within two hours of cooking. Freeze in individual portions, defrost in the fridge, and reheat until steaming hot throughout.

Label the containers. You won't remember.

Measurements are Australian. One tablespoon is 20 ml.

One note before you start taking anything

If you're exhausted in a way that food and sleep aren't touching, that's worth a conversation with your GP rather than a guess.

Low iron can look remarkably similar to the ordinary depletion of early motherhood from the inside. Fatigue, poor concentration and feeling generally flattened have plenty of possible explanations, and iron is only one of them.

A blood test can tell you much more than your symptoms can.

Iron-rich foods can be part of an ordinary varied diet. Concentrated iron supplements are a different proposition, and the right approach depends on whether deficiency is actually present.

That's a conversation with your GP.

Eat the bowl either way.

It's a good bowl.

Nourishment for the season you're in.