Heme iron from animal foods like spleen and liver is more bioavailable than plant-based iron and is necessary for repletion.

“anemia and vegetarian diets it's it's much more common in vegetarians and vegans to have anemia because the iron in plans is not very bioavailable okay that's the end of the story”

“and we don't even get enough iron from plant foods and how many I'm sure you have some Studies on how many people are deficient in iron especially in the vegetarian and vegan populations”

“so heme iron is the form of iron found in animal foods it's much more highly bioavailable than plant forms of iron you are not going to be able to replete iron without heme iron”

“humans have a clear specialization a clear preference to absorb iron as heme iron and heme iron only occurs in animal foods”

“nobody worries about an iron deficiency on animal based diet because you have lots of heme iron which is a very good thing”

“The iron found in plants is very poorly bioavailable like so many minerals we find in plants”

“because the iron in plant Foods is not an organic form of iron it's not a heme iron which is an iron in sort of this porphyrin ring which is a fancy word for the basically the middle of your hemoglobin molecule hemoglobin uh is is this porphyrin ring which holds an iron and the human body is sort of built to absorb iron in that fashion”

“especially the iron we know in plant-based Foods is less bioavailable than animal based iron this is heme iron versus non-heme Iron”