B-Minor and "Complete"/prescription feeds (Soylent, Huel, Ensure, Paediasure...)

Hi,

I wonder if any of you might be able to comment on this... I'm a beta-trait, diagnosed in childhood. I pretty much always have what looks like anaemia, but my doc has stopped panicking every time a blood result comes back. Many medical professionals have told me that iron supplementation can be dangerous - free globin, etc.  So far, so usual...

I also have a problem which affects my jaw sometimes. When that happens I take a lot of liquid food - milk, whey and so forth. Soups and broths too, but who has the time? So I really like the new nutritionally complete foods - 100% of your diet in liquid form. I've been finding them great. But I suddenly had a worry about iron. Is it the amount of iron that can be risky, or can the form matter?

Here's two examples:

- I've been using Huel. In a 2000Cal day that's 14.8mg iron, or 106% the NRV  ( https://huel.com/pages/nutritional-information-and-ingredients#profile ) BUT looking at the ingredients that's not in the vitamin mineral mix, so seems to be all from the food components; oats, peas, rice.

- My son, due to other disability, has an *entirely* prescription liquid diet. Paediasure from Abbot Nutrition. In the same 2000Cal that would be 19.7mg iron but all from added ferrous sulphate. That doesn't matter to him - he's not Thal - just an illustration of a food which does it differently.

Does the form of the iron matter? Are some of these feeds riskier than others?

Hi marshp,

The iron in Huel is from the veg proteins and is non-heme iron which is not absorbed well, so the amount is no concern.

Not all iron supplements are the same. There is a form of iron that comes from water that is naturally high in iron. It is called Spatone and is much easier on the digestive system than any of the ferrous products, and is also better absorbed. This type of iron is preferred when possible, but if the supplement he takes can't be found in a no iron version, he probably shouldn't add another supplement unless he is having trouble correcting iron deficiency.