The iron absorbed and utilized by human body at ordinary times is divided into heme iron and non-heme iron. The human body can directly absorb heme iron for its own use and make its own hemoglobin with high utilization rate. Foods with high heme iron content are mainly animal meat, viscera and blood, including pork, beef, pig liver and chicken liver.
Non-heme iron is not directly absorbed and utilized by human body, which is more troublesome than heme iron. Insoluble iron must first become soluble, that is, ferric iron is reduced to ferrous iron, and then absorbed into the blood, so that heme can be synthesized by itself. In this process, there are many obstacles such as phytic acid, oxalic acid, phosphoric acid and dietary fiber, and the absorption and utilization efficiency will be greatly reduced.
In daily diet, non-heme iron mainly exists in plant foods, and the iron in red dates is non-heme iron. Non-heme iron needs to be transformed in the body before it can be absorbed into the blood and then used by the human body. In the process of transformation, some iron has been lost, and there are many obstacles, which greatly reduces the absorption and utilization efficiency.
Because of the high absorption and utilization rate of iron in animal food, if women are really anemic or want to replenish blood after menstruation, the effect of directly supplementing iron is more obvious than eating red dates or eating animal food with blood-enriching effect.
The iron content in dried jujube is about 2~4mg/ 100g, which is very low compared with some animal foods. The iron content provided by red dates is low, and the hemoglobin synthesized by human body is not much, so the effect of enriching blood is not obvious.
Therefore, the blood-enriching effect of red dates is not as good as everyone thinks.