Question

You are a student doing summer healthcare work in a small village in Central America. You have been told that the local people have serious health problems related to iron deficiency anemia. There are no vitamins available for them to take. Consider alternative methods with which iron levels could be increased.

Answer 1

Step-by-step explanation:

In order to address iron deficiency in this village, locals will be encouraged to eat more of animal-based diet, especially beef, livers (from chicken, goat and cow), oysters, fish, chicken and turkey. This food sources contain high dietary heme iron which is is highly absorbed by the body.

Although plant sources also contain irons (in the form of non-heme iron) but these irons are not as absorbed by the body like the heme iron. However, the absorption rate of these non-heme irons can be increased by encouraging the locals to add fruits that contain vitamin-c (such as pineapple, orange, mango, grape, kiwi or strawberry) to there diet when they eat plant sources of non-heme irons like beans, spinach, nuts (cashew and almond), lentils and dried apricots .