Foods rich in iron so that children grow healthy 2026

Iron is an essential mineral for the correct growth and development of boys and girls.

Because? How does iron help your body? It turns out that iron improves athletic performance, is used to treat disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and improves skills and functions such as reasoning ability, learning and even memory.

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In addition, it makes proteins that transport oxygen to the different parts of the body and also to the muscles, it makes hormones and connective tissue.

For all these reasons, iron is essential for all of the child's abilities to develop without any problem. Iron deficiency, popularly known as anemia, results in fatigue, muscle weakness, paleness, nausea, hair loss, and other complications depending on the severity of the deficiency.

Why does it occur? There are many causes that can accompany a lack of iron in the blood, for example, poor diet or poor absorption, although there are also diseases that destroy red blood cells and consequently cause a lack of iron.

The groups that are most at risk of suffering from iron deficiencies are children from 6 months to 2 years, adolescents and women of childbearing age, during pregnancy and breastfeeding. Eating an adequate diet helps the development of children and can help prevent anemia.

The most important thing is that it is a varied diet and that it alternates the different sources of iron. There are two types of iron: heme iron, which comes from animal origin and is easier to assimilate by the body. It is present, for example, in red meat, eggs, or cockles. And non-heme iron, which comes from a vegetable source and absorption is more complicated, like classic lentils or spinach.

A good way to achieve better absorption of non-heme iron is to supplement it with vitamin C and without dairy products. Below we explain it better and teach you how to encourage iron intake in children's meals to improve their diet and, consequently, their health.

red meat

Beef, lamb and other red meats are very rich in iron, they have an average of about 3 mg of iron per 100 grams.

On the other hand, the proportions of the mineral are lower in rabbit, turkey and chicken.

Eggs

Each egg contains 1 mg of iron. Therefore, they are very beneficial to avoid iron deficiency.

Seafood

Most seafood does not contain a large amount of iron, but there are two exceptions with a high iron value: cockles and clams, which have 14 mg of iron per 100 grams.

Fish

Fish in general are not good sources of iron either (around 1 mg per 100 grams), but two species are: sardines (2.2 mg per 100 grams) and anchovies in oil (4 mg per 100 grams).

Viscera

In general terms, organ meats are the best sources of iron of animal origin.

And pork liver (18 mg per 100), cow, calf and chicken liver (around 7 mg per 100 grams) and cow heart (5 mg per 100 grams) stand out for their greatest contribution.

Legumes

The popular belief that lentils have a lot of iron is not entirely true; Although it is true that they contain approximately 7 mg of iron per 100 grams, the iron they contain is called non-heme iron (as it is not of animal origin).

This variety of iron is absorbed with much greater difficulty by our body than Heme Iron, of animal origin.

dried fruits

Of all the nuts, sesame seeds provide almost twice as much iron as any other: 9 mg per 100 grams. We can also find good amounts in pistachios (7.2 mg), peach kernels (7 mg), sunflower seeds (6.4 mg), pine nuts (5.6 mg) and almonds (4 mg).

Vegetables

Here we once again have the problem of non-heme iron, there are vegetables that contain large amounts of iron such as spinach but we must bear in mind that absorption will be more complicated. Among the vegetables with the most iron we point out: broccoli, spinach, chard, red cabbage and asparagus.

Iron absorption is more effective with Vitamin C

As important as the food we put in our mouths is how it is absorbed. Iron absorption is most effective when it is ingested with foods containing vitamin C.

Vitamin C is found, for example, in oranges and lemons.

Dairy products inhibit iron absorption

Likewise, dairy foods and some infusions impair iron absorption.

For this reason, if you are going to eat a good steak, for example, accompany it with orange juice or a whole fruit and avoid dairy products such as cheese, yogurt or custard in the same meal.