A shortage in iron in our diets is pretty common, particularly in women. There’s lots of reasons, everything from just variation in body types to ‘iron blockers’ such as tea and coffee!

So here’s a simple delicious juice recipe that can give you an iron booster. It uses plenty of spinach but don’t worry, it tastes good as it balances really well with the apple.

Ingredients

• 2 cups spinach (preferably baby leaves)
• 2 apples
• 1 kiwi fruit (optional)
• few mint leaves (optional)

Method

Roughly chop your ingredients – throw them in the juicer and juice. Enjoy 🙂

If you don’t have a juicer you really can make this as a smoothie too, just add some extra water (1/2 cup should do) and blend it really well. That way you’ll actually get more balanced nutrition too.

Couldn’t be simpler than that 🙂

So it is a very simple recipe – just the apple and spinach alone make it. But I like to add a kiwi fruit, and a few mint leaves as it really gives things a lift. You can also try different apples – red or green they both taste good. The type of apple you choose can affect the flavor a lot, so start with apples you know that you like.

If you can’t get baby spinach leaves regular spinach is fine too. It will be a bit less sweet so you might want to reduce the amount of spinach a bit (not too much now – this is not just apple juice!) to get a flavor balance you’re happy with.

In terms of iron content, spinach has more iron than kale at about 2.5mg iron per 100g spinach (kale is more like 1.7mg/100g).

TIP: if you want to boost the availability of the iron content further, soak your spinach at 80ºC for 10 minutes first. This helps reduce the oxalic acid that all vegetables contain which to some extent blocks your body absorbing iron.