Food

I’m vegetarian. How can I get enough iron?

I’ve been advised to increase the iron in my diet but, as a vegetarian preoccupied with getting sufficient protein, I’m at a loss.
June, by email
Last year, a study by Randox Health found that almost one in three women who attended its UK clinics have an iron deficiency, which is to say that June isn’t alone. Yes, there are good sources that vegetarians can tap into, but we first need to address a few key points: “The heme iron you get from animal sources – red meat and darker poultry, say – is in a form that’s slightly better absorbed than non-heme iron, which is found in the likes of beans, tofu and leafy greens,” says Dominique Ludwig, nutritionist and author of No-Nonsense Nutrition. This is where vitamin C is your friend: “When we eat non-heme iron and vitamin C together, it increases absorption, so it might be a case for having peppers or tomatoes with your tofu.” But there’s another potential hitch: “On a vegetarian diet, some of that iron can be blocked from absorption because of things such as phytates [a plant compound found in whole grains, legumes, etc], or tannins in tea and dairy,” Ludwig adds, so it’s not simply about how much iron you’re getting, but how good your absorption is.

“Women aged 19-49 should aim for 14.8mg iron a day, but after menopause that drops to about 8.7mg, which falls in line with men’s requirements,” Ludwig says. “If you’re vegetarian, then, you can’t just be having pesto pasta, you need to be eating beans, lentils, nuts, seeds, soy products, and leafy greens, too.” Tofu can have 3-5mg iron per 100g, cooked lentils 3-4mg, chickpeas 2½-3mg, cashews 6-7mg and sesame seeds 14-15mg. So, much like getting dressed, layering is important.

Oats in the morning are a no-brainer: “A 40g serving will give you 2mg iron, so have them with milled flaxseed and berries for the vitamin C,” Ludwig advises. The same principle applies to the likes of a tofu scramble: “Throw in some kale and tomatoes [again, for the vitamin C] and serve it with wholemeal bread, and you’re looking at about 7mg iron,” Ludwig adds. In other words, your day is getting off to a good start.

Also, seeing as Jane is vegetarian rather than vegan, she has eggs to play with, too, which is good news considering each one contains about 2mg iron. “Try a frittata with cottage cheese and broccoli, then sprinkle over some pumpkin seeds [a fantastic source of iron] before baking.” You can see how this all starts to add up.

Cashews, edamame, dried fruit (apricots, figs, prunes) and that perennial favourite, carrots and hummus, will all help. An evening stir-fry, meanwhile, can bring the odds and ends in your fridge together into an ultra-fast dinner that ups your iron. There are greens (kale, broccoli), of course, but June could also add tofu or seitan, and nuts, perhaps, and serve it with brown rice. “Or add lentils to your pasta, and stir through lots of green veg,” Ludwig adds. It can be easy being green.

The Guardian

Food

Why chewy dates pair perfectly with chocolate ?

I first cemented the allure of the “chew” aged 14, working illegally as a chambermaid (I lied about my age) and finding a guest’s Gummy Bears laid open – a breach I heavily exploited. Recently this chew need has been sated by dates and their use in chocolate as a healthy caramel. Dates do have nutritional benefits over mere sugar: fibre, minerals, antioxidants and make a great pre-workout boost.

My favourite, and how it all started, was with Solkiki’s excellent date bonbons: almond ganache in a date, surrounded by 66% Bolivian chocolate. When I’m eating chocolate dates for personal pleasure, the cocoa content needs to be high to counterbalance the tooth-jarring sweetness of dates, so these really did it for me. Another great contender was Sam Joseph’s 70% covered peanut butter medjool dates.

My young testers are obsessed with Forest Feast’s chocolate-covered fruit, so its date offerings are an easy segue. Best in the ring here are the peanut butter and milk chocolate: dates, chocolate and peanut butter are a menage a trois made in heaven. And in terms of the biggest, most pillowy dates, Birley Bakery wins with its selection boxes. These are sweet – especially the caramelised white with pecan – but I couldn’t resist biting into them for the sheer marshmallowness of the dates: epic. Meanwhile, if you’re in London, visit Makers in Chelsea for its date-stuffed offerings: I liked the gingerbread almond praline, although peanut butter is also available.

For using dates as sweetener, Cosmic Dealer is my current obsession. I love everything about their 75% chocolate-covered low sugar chocolate squares stuffed with a variety of nut butters and extras. I buy in bulk; my favourites are the peanut butter and smoked salt and the salty fig.

The Guardian

Food

How to save limp herbs

What can I do with herbs that are past their best?
Joe, by email
Happily, Joe and his on-the-turn herbs aren’t short of options. “The obvious choice for hard herbs is to chuck them in a sandwich bag and freeze them for future stock-making,” says Alice Norman, founder of regenerative bakery Pinch in Suffolk. Alternatively, Sami Tamimi, author of Boustany, would be inclined to dry his excess herbs. In summer, he’d simply pop them on a tray and put them outside in the sun, but right now he “dries them in a 60-70C oven, then packs in containers, ready for the next time you’re short of fresh herbs”.

Norman’s current MO is to blitz languishing herbs (“rosemary and/or thyme work best”) with a 3:4 ratio of fine salt. “You don’t want too many herbs, because that will throw off the moisture content and turn the mix black, but you need enough for the blades to catch and break down the rosemary properly.” Pulse until fine, then store in an airtight jar in the fridge (where it’ll keep for a month or so). “That can be used for so many things, from seasoning game to roast potatoes, and it works particularly well in bread.” To which end, take any focaccia recipe, boost it with mashed potato and replace the required salt with the herby salt: “The potato helps retain moisture, while the rosemary salt adds fragrance.”

An even easier route for past-their-best herbs, Tamimi says, is to get them in a chilled yoghurt soup, or any yoghurty dip, really. In a similar vein, Ethan Pack, head chef at Three Sheets in Soho, London, puts them to work in hummus, though purists had better look away now. “Make a herb oil first and use that in the base of the hummus, or blitz the herbs with the chickpeas, tahini, etc,” he says. “If I’m feeling fancy, I might also use the herbs to make a compound butter or fridge-raid chimichurri.”

Joe could also keep sad herbs sweet by using them to infuse cream. If you have thyme – or, even better, lemon thyme – Norman suggests trying this: “Warm cream until it’s gently steaming, then add the thyme, though remember that a small bunch goes a long way.” Turn off the heat, cover, leave to infuse for an hour or two, then strain and discard the solids. “Chill the cream, then, to serve, whip softly with golden icing sugar – that pairs beautifully with a rhubarb and apple cobbler, for instance.”

Don’t let those stalks go to waste, either. For Norman dill and tarragon stems are especially golden. “I keep a bottle of vinegar for each herb in the fridge, and top them up with the stems as I go – just make sure the vinegar covers them.” Give the dill vinegar a whirl in tzatziki, say, and the tarragon version in a béarnaise. If you want to get a bit cheffy, Norman says, turn parsley stalks into fake “capers”: “Dissolve 40g fine salt in 500ml water, cool completely, then add parsley stalks chopped to roughly the size of small capers.” Get that in the fridge quick-smart and it’ll be good to go in a couple of days, ready to bring “a bright tang to anything that needs a lift”. And we could all do with a bit of that right now.

The Guardian

Food

A global food price shock looms as Middle East war rages on

The Middle East conflict has disrupted trade through the Strait of Hormuz and its impact could ripple far beyond the energy markets, risking a spike in global food prices.

The strait is not only a key artery for oil and gas shipments but also for fertilizers critical to global agriculture. Analysts told CNBC disruptions could feed through to higher farming costs, reduced crop yields and ultimately more expensive food.

“Higher energy and input costs risk reigniting global food inflation just as retail food prices had returned to more historical levels in many countries,” according to the International Food Policy Research Institute, or IFPRI.

Raj Patel, a research professor at the University of Texas, also warned that fertilizer disruptions linked to the conflict could amplify global food pressures through several channels simultaneously.

“The short answer is: significant, and faster than people think,” Patel said. “The Strait of Hormuz is a fertilizer chokepoint. Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Iran together supply a substantial share of the world’s traded urea and phosphates, and virtually all of it transits Hormuz.”

Countries dependent on food imports directly as well as those reliant on fertilizers could face rising costs within weeks, particularly during key planting periods, said industry watchers.

Gulf countries face: immediate risk

The first region likely to feel the impact includes countries closest to the conflict.

“Regionally, consumers in the GCC are most exposed to short-term food price spikes due to their heavy reliance on maritime imports transiting the Strait of Hormuz,” said Bin Hui Ong, commodities analyst at BMI.

Arabian Gulf economies such as Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia rely heavily on food imports shipped through the Strait of Hormuz. If shipping remains constrained, supplies would need to be rerouted through alternative corridors or transported overland at far higher cost, analysts said.

“When it comes to short term shortages, all countries around the Persian gulf west of Hormuz will struggle to get food imports in,” Mera said. “These countries will need to find alternative routes.”

He noted that wealthier states such as Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have the financial resources to import food by air or overland routes if necessary, but poorer neighbors may struggle more.

“Iraq may suffer. Iran itself will also face scarcity,” Mera added.

Sub-Saharan Africa: most vulnerable

Beyond the Gulf region, the greatest risks may lie in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, where farmers depend heavily on imported fertilizer and households spend a large share of income on food.

“Sub-Saharan Africa is the most vulnerable region,” said Patel. Data from the University of Texas at Austin shows that over 90% of the fertilizer consumed in sub-Saharan Africa is imported, mostly from outside the continent.
Nitrogen-intensive crops such as maize, a key staple across the region, are especially sensitive to fertilizer shortages, raising the risk of lower harvests and rising food prices, other experts highlighted.

“The poorest and most densely populated regions are likely to suffer the most,” said Rabobank’s Mera, including parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

Asian concerns

South and Southeast Asia could also face mounting cost pressures.

Major agricultural economies such as India, Bangladesh, Thailand and Indonesia rely heavily on imported fertilizers from the Gulf. A sustained disruption could drive up costs for farmers during key planting seasons.

“A farmer in Thailand who is 90% import-dependent, buying urea that’s made from gas, shipped through Hormuz, and priced in dollars that are strengthening because of geopolitical risk, faces a cost shock on every dimension simultaneously,” Patel said.

Staples in the region, which include rice and maize are among the most fertilizer-intensive crops.

Mera singled out Indonesia and Bangladesh among those likely to be worst affected in the region.

Longer-term view

If farmers respond to higher fertilizer prices by reducing its use, crop yields could decline and push food prices higher.

Brazil, one of the world’s largest agricultural exporters, could face rising costs if fertilizer markets tighten, said analysts. Brazil imports around 85% of its fertilizer, making its soybean and maize production highly dependent on global supply chains.

A prolonged disruption during Brazil’s key fertilizer import season could ripple through global crop markets, eventually impacting food prices.

Even if crop output remains relatively stable in the near term, rising energy costs alone could drive food inflation higher globally, experts said.

Energy plays a major role throughout the food supply chain, from powering farm machinery and producing fertilizers to transporting crops and processing them into food products.

“The bigger impact on consumer prices will not be the impact on agricultural commodities but the fact that energy is a big portion of the total retail food bill,” said Joseph Glauber, senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute.

Chris Barrett, an agricultural economist at Cornell University, said the scale of any price shock will depend heavily on how long shipping disruptions persist.

CNBC