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Parsley and Iron
Tasty and healthy
Parsley is an excellent source of iron if you’re on a plant-based or vegetarian diet, or if you eat little meat. The best source, incidentally, is… young nettle — but only in spring, when the shoots are fresh. It makes excellent pesto.
However, this is non-heme iron, Fe³⁺ (remember that from middle school chemistry?), which must be reduced to the divalent form, Fe²⁺ — called heme iron — before it can be absorbed. The key point in the kitchen is that non-heme iron is much less readily absorbed.
Heme iron is found only in meat, so if you limit or avoid meat, you need to be mindful of this. The simplest solution is… lemon. Once the dish is on the plate (because vitamin C is destroyed by high heat), drizzle it with lemon juice.
And here’s the advantage of parsley: it contains both iron and vitamin C! The iron in parsley is the most easily absorbed of all plant-based iron sources. The same applies to pesto made from parsley or radish leaves (also a good source of iron) — always add lemon juice.
On my site, you can find a recipe for wild garlic and parsley pesto, but whether you’re using parsley, radish leaves, or young nettle, the same proportions apply:
https://medium.com/one-table-one-world/pesto-with-wild-garlic-148fd4182e92
Selected plant-based iron sources (mg per 100 g):*
