[Razzz42]

Just how much iron do you really need? Does a body recycle iron?

Animal products are 40%, 60% assumable and/or absorbable iron. That’s about 40% heme iron and 60% non-heme iron. Lot’s of unnecessary waste there that can’t undergo digestion along with extra fat/greases that accumulate over the years to cause other diseases.

Garden picked fresh and immediately eaten spinach, all the iron is assumable. Only shelf life begins ruining the makeup of fresh foods. Steaming (pressure cooker) will aid in a body absorbing nutrients from vegetables and other foods besides the body reheating intake before breaking it down (digesting).

[aruanan]

Just how much iron do you really need? Does a body recycle iron?

Unless you're menstruating, you need very little iron. The human body has an amount of iron equal to that in a small nail. Yes, the body recycles iron just like it recycles cholesterol (absorption of bile salts in the gut). And too much iron is very dangerous to your health.

Animal products are 40%, 60% assumable and/or absorbable iron. That’s about 40% heme iron and 60% non-heme iron. Lot’s [sic] of unnecessary waste there that can’t undergo digestion along with extra fat/greases that accumulate over the years to cause other diseases.

The second sentence doesn't even make sense. "unnecessary waste there that can't undergo digestion..." Where, inside or outside the body? If inside, then digestion has already taken place. If outside [technically anything within the intestinal tract is outside the body since, topologically, you're a doughnut] then "extra fat/greases that accumulate over the years" inside the body won't have any effect. You do know, don't you, that an obese person who has adequate physical activity is in less danger of adverse coronary events than a non-obese person that is sedentary?

Garden picked fresh and immediately eaten spinach, all the iron is assumable.

No, it's not. The iron in spinach that comes right out of the garden is mostly in the form of ferrous oxalate, which is not bioavailable.

Only shelf life begins ruining the makeup of fresh foods.

Dried and otherwise preserved food is nutritionally about the same as fresh. The only difference is that with years of preservation, vitamin C may start to lose its efficacy. This was discovered on long sea voyages when the lemon juice used to prevent scurvy gradually lost its antiscorbutic effect. And if a food containing oils is not preserved well using anti-oxidants (such as BHA and BHT), cool temperature, and darkness, the oils can start to become rancid (double bonds in unsaturated fats are broken by free radicals). All these methods of preservation actually provide a much wider range of healthier food than trying to get everything "fresh."

Steaming (pressure cooker) will aid in a body absorbing nutrients from vegetables and other foods besides the body reheating intake before breaking it down (digesting).

Yes, cooking can help to start the breakdown of foods to make the nutrients easier to assimilate. Another benefit of cooking is that it destroys food-borne pathogens as well as some toxins. Most cooked food becomes colder in the stomach than in was in the mouth. There is no truth to the belief that drinking cold beverages inhibits digestion.