Eating more vegetarian food and drinking more tea has always been a healthy lifestyle advocated by people. However, according to a recent report by Taiwan's TTV News, many hospitals in Taiwan have recently been seeing a string of patients "felled" by a vegetarian diet and tea. Uneven nails and inflamed corners of the mouth were the conditions of a 27-year-old woman when she sought medical help. She drank large amounts of green tea daily for weight loss and ended up with severe anemia. In addition, some long-term vegetarians have shown similar symptoms. These are all signs of iron-deficiency anemia. So, how do tea and vegetarianism cause the body to lose iron?
Although tea is very beneficial to human health, it contains a large amount of tannic acid. When a person drinks a large amount of strong tea, tannic acid combines with iron to form an insoluble substance that hinders the absorption of iron. Therefore, tea lovers should limit their tea intake, drink it weakly, and try to avoid drinking strong tea half an hour before meals. [China Food]
Perhaps some people will ask, many vegetables also contain iron, so won't eating these vegetables prevent anemia? In fact, there are two forms of iron in food: one is heme iron, found in animal foods, with an absorption rate of 20%-25%; the other is non-heme iron, found in plant foods, with an absorption rate of less than 10%. Generally speaking, the iron that is actually absorbed by the body mainly comes from animal foods. Although vegetarian foods like spinach are rich in iron, they also contain more phytic acid and oxalic acid, which instead hinder the absorption of iron. This is especially true for women who need large amounts of iron during puberty, pregnancy, and childbirth, and they may develop anemia due to iron deficiency from a vegetarian diet. Therefore, even for the sake of health, one must maintain a balanced diet and not "penny wise and pound foolish."