How do I calculate iron intake when it’s not included in the nutrition information on the label?

ozzyemily
ozzyemily Posts: 2 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hi, I am trying to track my iron intake as I have a tendency to become deficient and require infusions. I just realised that most of the foods I scan (eg, a packet of lean beef mince) don’t have iron in the nutritional information, and don’t have the iron content on the label either. So my app says I’m getting no iron, when in fact I am. Is it possible to manually calculate the iron content if it is not available from the manufacturer? Thanks
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Answers

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 35,097 Member
    Maybe sometimes.

    I suspect you're not in the US, but maybe there's something similar where you are. In the US, we have this database:

    https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/

    You could probably use that to get an approximation for some basic foods, like the lean beef mince if you have a fat content estimate (even without that you can probably get semi-approximate). The terminology would be different, though. I think we use the term "ground beef" for something you'd call "beef mince" for example. (That's why I'm guessing you aren't in the US.)

    You could also web search "how much iron in lean beef mince" to get some approximate values, if you're careful about picking a reliable-seeming source from the search results.
  • ozzyemily
    ozzyemily Posts: 2 Member
    Thank you for the link, super helpful!

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