NYRadio Ep1 - How To Boost The Nutrient 1 in 4 Of Us Are Deficient In - w/Leah Salmon

Welcome to Naturally You Radio – the podcast helping Black women to eat for health, think for happiness, and live in harmony. I’m your host, Leah Salmon – The Naturally You Coach, and in this episode, I’m diving into one of the most common yet often overlooked nutrient deficiencies affecting millions of women and children—iron deficiency.

If you’ve ever felt faint, lightheaded, tired for no reason, struggled with your period, low energy, or poor hair health, this one’s for you. In this episode, I break down:

✅ What iron actually does in your body
✅ Symptoms & long-term impact of low iron
✅ Why iron deficiency disproportionately affects Black women
✅ How much iron we need at different stages of life
✅ 9 tried and tested natural ways to increase your iron levels—food, supplements, herbs & lifestyle changes

Whether you’re managing your health, preparing for pregnancy, or just want to feel more vibrant, these practical tips are for you.

💡 PLUS – I share a bit about my own journey with iron struggles in my teens and 20s, and how I’ve helped countless Black women improve their levels over the years.

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Take care & stay healthy
Leah 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

I was always scared that I was gonna pass out. And I had absolutely no reason, no idea why this kept on happening to me. Greetings and welcome to Naturally You Radio, the show where we help Black women to eat for health, think for happiness and live in harmony, or what I call becoming Naturally You. And I am your host, Leah Salmon, the Naturally You coach. So today on Naturally You Radio, I'm going to be sharing with you nine ways that you can naturally boost a mineral that a whopping 25% of women and children are deficient in worldwide, which is, you guessed it, iron. So if you want to find out more about that, pour yourself some tea and let's get started. This is the tea I have today which we're actually going to be talking about later on so let's have a sip of tea before we get started and also before we get started I want to firstly welcome back all the listeners who have been with me since I started this podcast back in 2017 and we're now in 2025 and went through all the ups and downs of the podcast with me. And I hope you'll come with me on this next phase of the Naturally You journey as well. And welcome to sisters who are joining me on this podcast for the first time. Let me introduce myself quickly. My name is Leah Simon, the Naturally You coach. I'm a home educating mother of six and two angels. I'm a nutritionist, life coach, bestselling author and speaker, live blood and and owner of the Naturally You Health Centre in Wolverhampton. I'm also on a mission to help Black women and families to eat for health, think for happiness, and live in harmony, or what I call becoming Naturally You. And I do that through my social media, through talks and workshops, and I'm hoping to do more of that through this podcast as well. And... in the work that I do with black women and increasingly with black men as well, low iron is affecting so many more of my clients. And I can personally relate because I remember being in my teens and early twenties and routinely feeling like I was going to, like feeling faint and lightheaded and like I was gonna pass out. Like I routinely remember being scared if I got onto a bus to go to college or to work and the bus was too full for me to be able to sit down because if I had to stand up, I was always scared that I was going to pass out. And I had absolutely no reason, no idea why this kept on happening to me. But I routinely remember it happening and I didn't tell anyone so that I could get any advice. Looking back at it now, I was clearly, I clearly had low iron and the bare minimum, I did not eat before I left the house. I probably didn't even drink anything before I left the house. And I was like rushing around all the time and I was doing loads of things. And my diet was trash, to be honest, when I was, when I was in my late teens, early twenties. So it's no, like, there's no wonder that I was going through that back then, which was like 20 odd years ago. Now, 20 odd years into the future, where we are now, I can say that awareness of the symptoms of low iron is a lot more commonplace. A lot more people realize that they're tired and feeling lightheaded and drained, that they are probably low in iron. But the prevalence of low iron does not seem to be diminishing in any way, shape or form. So to start with, let's just... you know, have a recap as to what iron is and why it's important. So most of us know that iron is a mineral and our body is made up of vitamins and minerals and micronutrients. And we get the minerals that we need and the micronutrients that we need from the food that we eat and the things that we consume. So why is iron in particular, this particular mineral, why is it important? So, you know, we could talk about iron for a whole hour, but in general, iron is... is the central part of hemoglobin so hemoglobin is what makes our red blood cells red and it's what carries oxygen in our blood cells now i'm a live blood analyst and i love talking about blood and i look at blood all the time um and so iron deficiency is going to reduce the amount of oxygen that our blood can carry and lower hemoglobin levels mean that our body can't carry as much oxygen to all of the parts of our body which is a vital a vital function function. iron's also involved in energy production in our cells it's involved in the production of new cells and amino acids which is the building blocks of protein and hormones and neurotransmitters which are the things that keep our brain going and send messages around our body our white blood cells which is our immune system are mainly made of vitamin c zinc and iron so again if we don't have enough iron then our immune system is compromised children's brain development needs iron i mean a lot of people already kind of are aware that children really need iron. We need to make sure that children are getting enough iron in their diets as well. And again, like I said, the shocking statistic that I found out maybe about five years ago is that 25% of women and children are deficient. The oxygenation of us, you know, of our muscles and the enzyme production and so many more things are dependent on iron on this particular mineral. So when we are deficient in it, it can lead to the condition that most of us already know of called anemia. And you've got pernicious anemia and you've got anemia, but anemia in general, is characterized by the main characteristics of it. Again, which a lot of people know is that they become fatigued, there's weakness, shortness of breath, a tendency to always wanna chew ice, crunch ice. I had a neighbor, rest her soul, my neighbor upstairs, she was always chewing on ice, always chomping on ice. I remember my dad just before he passed on, when his iron was on the floor, he was always asking for ice and he would ask for ice and then, coffee straight afterwards. And I looked at his, I asked the carer to look at his notes and he was being prescribed iron tablets, but he just wasn't taking them. So that's another one. And, you know, shortness of breath, tiredness, not being able to concentrate, your sleep can be affected, you're cold all the time. I know that a lot of comedians are talking about that being a trait of having low iron, always being cold, it being blazing hot outside and you still need to have like a jumper on. It also affects your, again, your mental capacity, low Learning in children, their ability to concentrate in class and learn and recall information. And then again, because it affects our white blood cells, because our white blood cells need vitamin C, zinc and iron. When there isn't enough iron, it does mean that we're more susceptible to illnesses. And again, people with anemia do tend to be more susceptible to the bugs that are going around. And even when people feel like they're run down, And all of those symptoms are symptoms of being run down, tired, fatigue, all of those kind of things. And then they keep on getting every bug that's going around the office or school or college or everything that their child is bringing home. All of those things could be an indication that you are low in iron. Now, most of the work that I do, again, is with Black women. And low iron for us affects everything from periods to pregnancy, childbirth, recovery from childbirth, breastfeeding. It has an impact on our skin health, our hair health, our hair growth. growth and it significantly obviously compromises our energy, our vitality and our longevity. So it's something I'm always dealing with with clients. Now, some sisters of all ages that come in, in fact, have no problem with iron or energy. I have lots of clients whose iron levels are absolutely stable and they're doing great. But I would say at least 70%, if not more, of the sisters that are coming into the clinic have got indications of low iron or they've got a diagnosis of anemia. and low iron and it's one of the things that thankfully i've got the pleasure of not only being able to help myself with and my iron was so low during one of my pregnancies that i was being advised that having a home birth would be dangerous and i used a lot of the things that i'm going to talk to you about now i used those things to boost my iron when i was eight months pregnant and my iron went up within something like three to four weeks um so I have helped sisters do it and I've had the pleasure of being able to do it for myself and other people as well. So I do know that it's possible. And, you know, I don't think people necessarily appreciate how many foods we have, how many foods and natural ways there are available to boost iron. And I think most people just kind of think I'm going to need to take medication. And a lot of people are wary of doing that because the medication they've taken hasn't worked. But I'm going to be sharing with you nine ways that you can holistically boost your iron levels. Now, the amount of iron that everybody needs is going to vary from different groups of people. But roughly, women between kind of 19 and like 45 roughly need about 15 milligrams of iron. Pregnant mothers, that goes up because obviously they need it for them and the babies. That's about 27 milligrams. Children, Male and female under, you know, kind of from like eight to 14, let's say, they need about 15, like between eight and 15. And then met guys need like nine, basically, because they don't have as many things going on that depletes their iron in the way that, you know, pregnant or breastfeeding or menstruating women or growing children, growing teenagers need. Yeah. So nine of the ways that you can naturally boost your iron levels is firstly fruits and vegetables. So things like watermelon, strawberries, spinach, kale, parsley, beans, those kind of things are really high in iron. And then obviously you've got animal products. Animal products are definitely going to have lots of iron in them because you're actually eating the flesh that had the, you know, the blood in it. You're eating the flesh of the animal. So you're taking in all of the nutrients that that animal is made of. But I know a lot of my audience don't eat animal products. In our family, we only eat fish and eggs. So even though we're definitely getting iron from the um from the fish and from the eggs a lot of clients I work with and a lot of people that may be listening to this don't want to eat animal products and I fully understand why a lot of people wouldn't want to eat animal products so whilst they are definitely um you know options I would definitely recommend getting lots of dark green leafy vegetables into your diet and again things like watermelon and strawberry so when I was pregnant and my iron was on the floor, I started to make myself daily green smoothies. Now, we used to have green smoothies regularly anyway, but I was really, really specific about making sure I was always having spinach and orange and strawberries and kale and parsley in my smoothies on a daily basis. So again, like I was saying, we need, like a woman, a sister needs about 15 milligrams of iron on a daily basis. So just to get some advantage point, a cup of cooked lentils like green lentils cooked green lentils can give you up to six milligrams that's like nearly half of your daily component of iron just in one cup of cooked lentils so if you're making like lentil soup or lentil stew and you use about a cup of cook you eat about a cup of cooked lentils that is is going to be sufficient for you the other way to get iron naturally. So again, with those fruits and vegetables, you want to make sure you're including some of those fruits and vegetables at each of your meals. So some melon or strawberry for breakfast, and then some spinach and kale with your lunch, and then maybe beans or lentils with dinner. That kind of spreading it out throughout the day is going to help your body to make sure you're continually taking it in. Now, the tea that I am drinking today is molasses tea. So molasses tea is literally a table. I mean, this is a huge cup. This is a great big fat cup. This is a great big fat cup. But molasses tea is normally a tablespoon of blackstrap molasses in hot water stirred up. And that's how you make tea. So a tablespoon of blackstrap molasses is found to have about 20% of a woman's daily recommended daily allowance of molasses. So if you're having the cup of cooked lentils and then you're having some molasses tea, you're like, you're, you know... over halfway there to getting all the iron that you need for the day. So I love molasses. Molasses is a byproduct of making sugar in the sugar productions. And not only does it have iron, it's got lots of the B vitamins in it as well. So it helps with energy. It helps with relaxation. It helps with balancing stress. It's a really nourishing, something very nourishing. I know a lot of sisters who have incorporated molasses in their journey to heal themselves from things like fibroids and a lot of womb health challenges I know back home in the Caribbean... they would regularly put lime juice into their molasses as well. And we're going to talk about why they would possibly do that. I tried it and it does make the molasses taste a bit better. I mean, I like molasses anyway, but I will say not all molasses is made equal. So some of the molasses I've had does not taste as nice as others. The one we have now is the blackstrap molasses from Whole Earth and it's the organic fair trade one. And that one tastes really good, but definitely some of them do not taste as nice. as others. And then adding the lime juice, I think helps all of them taste a bit better. And again, we're going to talk about why adding lime juice to molasses is even more important. So fruits and vegetables is one way. Molasses tea and having one or two cups a day is brilliant. The other thing that you can do is liquid iron supplements. So medications tend to be, when you go to the doctors and present with low iron or anemia, they'll tend to prescribe you tablets. Now, I used to work as a nurse and I remember I I always knew my client, my patients who had been given or taken iron tablets because I would do actual care on my, you know, like washing them and taking them to the bathroom and stuff. Their stools, their poo were always black and sticky. And a lot of the time they would say that they don't even feel that much better from the medication. Now I fully understand if you choose to go to the doctors and take the medication, that is a hundred percent on, you know, of course I respect your decision to do that. I will say a lot of people do find that the medication doesn't work as well. B12 injections, they seem to always help clients. They do seem to be a lot more efficient. But the iron tablets, they just don't so much. Liquid forms of iron that are a lot easier for your body to absorb, they seem to work a lot more efficiently and effectively. And again, when I was pregnant, trying to boost my iron naturally, I was taking Spartone and Floradex. And again, 27 milligrams is roughly what you need as a pregnant mother. So I need, my requirements were a lot more. If you've got heavy, long and painful periods, your requirements are gonna be a lot more. So my favorites are Floradex and Spartone. So Spartone comes in those little sachets, those little blue sachets, and it's got... iron rich mineral water from a spring in the UK. Now you get about five milligrams for each sachet of Spartone. So again, if you need 15 as a, like a menstruating woman, having one of those is like a third of your requirement. If one of those, some molasses tea and some lentil soup, and you've got your iron pretty much for the day. And then just keeping that consistent. So liquid forms of iron are easier to absorb. So your body gets the benefit from them more quickly. So that's another suggestion. And there's lots of others. There's, I can't remember the other ones actually. Not Floravital. Ferroglobin, that's it. Ferroglobin I know is another liquid iron supplement. And then there's a lot of liquid iron supplements coming on the market. So especially sprays. Sprays or liquids. So when you spray, you spray it directly into the inside of your mouth and then it gets absorbed into your cheeks and again it just hits the bloodstream a lot more quickly without having to go through the digestive system so those are all really good options to naturally boost your iron um especially because and again you want to find the liquid supplements that have got the least ingredients you know less sweeteners and preservatives and all those kind of things some preservatives are going to be necessary but you just want to find the liquors with this as few ingredients in them as possible and that's one of the reasons why i love spartan because it's got very very few ingredients I would also recommend... And then another way to naturally get it in is through animal products. And again, like I said, animal flesh and meat is super high in iron. As a Black woman, the forms of animal products that I would recommend... we kind of sticking to that we can get as much new all the nutrients we really need without having to go too much further is fish and eggs again fish has got lots of healthy fat in it as well and because a lot of the needs of a woman are you know we do need a lot of healthy fat again because our menstrual cycle and fertility and skin and hair health and all those kind of things so because fish has a lot of healthy fat in it as well as a lot of iron in it. It is, I think, a very beneficial food in the diet if you want to eat fish and you want to eat animal products. I would also recommend organic free range eggs because again, as long as you're not sensitive to them, like I have become, I've become sensitive to eggs, so I can't even participate in this. I'm fine with fish, but I can't take eggs anymore. But I do think eggs is also a really good source of iron. So two boiled eggs has got something like seven seven milligrams of um seven milligrams of like a really you know high quality organic again organic free-range eggs have got about seven milligrams of iron in them so you can get a lot of iron from boiled eggs as well so animal foods if you do want to eat them is another way to naturally get iron in your diet and again when we're talking about all these natural um foods because Foods are not isolated nutrients. They're a complete package from mother nature. Not only are they gonna have iron, if it's an iron rich fruit or vegetable or animal products or molasses, it's not just going to have iron in it. It's gonna have iron in it and lots of other complimentary nutrients in it as well to make sure you're not just boosting your iron and letting everything else fall to the wayside. Lots of nutrients in your body that all support each other and work synergistically all get boosted at the same time so but I'm not particularly a fan of getting you know having a zinc spray and then an iron spray and then a vitamin c spray and then a vitamin d spray and a vitamin k spray when you can have like a green smoothie with you know kale and berries and papaya and when you can get it through your food there are definitely some people that are so depleted or they're in such condition that they do need the support of supplements but long term you want to incorporate foods. Again, we use supplements to get us out of deficiency, put us back into balance, and then we use foods to maintain. So the fifth way that you can boost your iron naturally is to reduce the things that inhibit the absorption of iron. So that is one of the considerations when it comes to iron is that we might be getting enough iron in our diet, but it's being inhibited or blocked by other foods or other substances. So some of the things that can block iron absorption is alcohol because of the way that it interferes with our digestion. I mean, alcohol is very depleting in a lot of ways. There's not really a benefit of alcohol in the diet at all. I'm not even really hearing the red wine situation because the grapes, you could just eat the grapes. You don't need to eat the fermented grapes. But, you know, and again, not even everything in moderation, but small amounts of alcohol aren't going to be a big deal. But if you do have low iron, if you do have liver challenges, if you do have sleep challenges, there is no benefit of having alcohol in your diet. And again, in this instance, it is something that does inhibit our ability to absorb iron. Dairy is another thing that can inhibit our ability to absorb iron, especially because a lot of Black people are already lactose intolerant, which means we can't break down the sugars in milk which makes the milk product in general challenging for us like I went to a restaurant with my friends on the weekend and I wanted macaroni cheese and I had and I really wanted to have like a vegan macaroni cheese but they didn't have it and I hadn't eaten all day so I was just like I'm just gonna have and I ate it within the full knowledge that that I would have issues in the morning. I didn't even get to the morning. I was in the bathroom in the middle of the night because it's dairy. So dairy has a lot of challenges when it comes to black women's health and inhibiting iron absorption is one of them. The other consideration is tannins. So tannins are a nutrient that's found in green tea and like kind of regular tea, we call it. So if you're in the UK, I'm thinking like PG tips and Yorkshire tea. So the nutrient in it called tannins, which gives it its brown color, that can also actually have an inhibiting effect on iron. It can block the absorption of iron to a degree. And they've actually done studies and they showed that if there is a one hour gap between you eating an iron rich food and having the tea, then the iron absorption is increased. But if you have an iron rich food and you have tea at the same time, not as much iron is absorbed. So it's not to say you don't have green tea because green tea is an amazing antioxidant and it's got all the great things in it. But you do want to kind of space out the time between having green tea and having iron rich foods or iron supplements or, you know, the liquid ions or the molasses, those types of things, because it can have a inhibitory effect. So fruits and vegetables is number one, two molasses, three liquid iron supplements, four animal foods like fish and eggs, five reducing inhibitors. The other thing that you can do to naturally improve our iron levels is to increase vitamin C. Because again, sometimes it's not necessarily we're not getting enough in, but we're not it's not being absorbed as efficiently. So something you can do to increase the absorption of iron is increase your vitamin C. So again, when it comes to nature and natural foods, a lot of the natural foods that I mentioned that have got iron have also got vitamin C. So they're completely packaged to be fully absorbed. In the same way, when you get an orange or citrus fruits, the yellow, the white bit, which we call pith, has actually got a nutrient in it that helps your body absorb vitamin c so again it's a perfect you know nature's amazing mother nature perfectly packaged everything but when we have foods that don't um that you know don't have vitamin c in them and we're having a lot of iron, then increasing our vitamin C can help our body to absorb the iron we're already taking in. And I know some of the Spartone sachets come with vitamin C. That's the one that we normally stock in the Natural Youth Health Centre, the Spartone with the vitamin C, because again, it just helps absorption. And it tastes a bit less metallic as well, which is helpful. So you can increase your vitamin C by taking a pure vitamin C powder, ascorbic acid powder, which is actually something I recommend that everyone just keeps in their house, because there are so many benefits of having pure vitamin C powder. So not the fizzy tablets or anything like that, just pure vitamin C powder. So vitamin C powder, you can add to your water or fruit juices or smoothies. And then again, the food sources of vitamin C are almost all fruits and vegetables, but berries, fresh or frozen berries, in fact, papaya, which is not one of my favorite fruits, but I must admit it does have lots of vitamin C in it. Red bell peppers, kiwi, citrus, lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. Those ones do have lots of, so lots of vitamin C in them. So making sure you are having lots of vitamin C rich foods, or again, you know, pure supplements to help your body absorb the iron you're already taking in is another way to increase your iron levels. The other thing that I would recommend is that you improve your absorption. Because again, when there's nutritional deficiencies, it's not always that you don't have enough of that nutrient coming in. It might just be that your body isn't breaking it down. So if you're already eating enough vitamin C, sorry, you're already eating enough iron, then Doing things like taking digestive tonics like aloe vera juice, taking probiotics, friendly bacteria to help support your gut health and the balance of friendly and unfriendly bacteria in your gut. Pineapple is amazing for the digestion and it also has lots of vitamin C in it, which is useful. Making sure you're taking in enough water, that's eating your water and drinking your water, having salads with each of your meals or raw fruits with each of your meals. All of those things can help your digestion so that your body can get more iron from the nutrients you're already taking in. And then number eight is natural supplements. So things like sea moss, which I love, and we're going to do a whole podcast on, which has got tons of nutrients in it as well, as well as fiber to help the digestion. Shilajit, which again, we're going to do a whole podcast on, which has got loads of nutrients in it in and of itself. But Shilajit is also another great way of getting iron into your body. And then things like spirulina, chlorella, all of those kind of supplemental superfood type supplements. are really good ways of getting iron into your body. They are definitely more expensive than the foods. But again, if you want that real hit and you want to invest in your health and you're in a position to, definitely including those in your diet is excellent. Moringa is another brilliant source of it. Now, herbs is my baby. I absolutely love herbs and the ability of herbs to be able to nourish the body. And I would say one of my toxic traits is saying that nettle and dandelion tea can solve every problem in the world and at least literally when I was recovering from my womb health challenges at the beginning of my health journey when I was pregnant and my iron was low when you know through my life as a parent herbs have always been what I've gone to to successfully help me to improve, you know, the health conditions that I've gone through. We've literally just created a new herbal tea blend in the Naturally You Health Centre and online at the Naturally You Coach called Chuma, C-H-U-M-A, Chuma. And it is a combination of the herbs that I found to be the highest in iron and minerals that support the blood and mineral levels. So the herbs we've got is nettle and dandelion, my two favourite herbs, I think. Salsa apparella. Now, sarsaparilla and yellow dock have both, I think, an equal amount, an equal measure, been said to have the highest levels of iron in the plant kingdom. So those are two of the herbs in there, sarsaparilla and yellow dock. And sarsaparilla does give the tea that kind of sarsaparilla cordial taste, because that is what sarsaparilla is from, the sarsaparilla root. It's also got burdock root in there as well. And And again, like kidney health, liver health, hibiscus. Hibiscus, which is sorrel, gives it a slightly red colour. And the amount of research that is continually coming out about how beneficial hibiscus is, is crazy. I'm going to have to do a whole podcast on all the benefits of hibiscus as well. I know it's called zobo in some of the African countries as well. And then red clover. So those are the herbs that are in the tumour blend. And those are some herbs that you can incorporate into your diet as well. to increase your iron levels. So those are the nine ways that you can boost your iron levels naturally. So to recap, it was fruits and vegetables, molasses, liquid iron supplements, animal foods, reducing inhibitors, increasing vitamin C, increasing or improving our digestion, natural supplements and herbs. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening to this Naturally You podcast on how to boost your iron naturally i hope you found this useful i would love your support in keeping this podcast going so please do subscribe and follow the podcast wherever you're listening to it share episodes and leave reviews of how you found the episodes and that would be amazing i would very much appreciate that i look forward to seeing you back here on monday with the next episode and i'd like to see you over at the naturally you coach.com or you can come and hang out with me on social media i'm on tiktok instagram youtube and facebook just search for leah's salmon or the natural you coach. I look forward to seeing you guys again in the next podcast. Have a wonderful day. Take care and stay healthy.