The short answer
- Our product contains no iron. None of the three formulas. This article is information, not a sale.
- The body absorbs only a fraction of the iron it eats. EFSA assumes about 10% up to age 11 and 16% after that.
- Iron from meat and iron from plants behave differently, and that changes what is worth putting on the plate.
- It's the nutrient where supplementing without a blood test is a bad idea, and where excess isn't harmless.
Starting with the part that doesn't suit us
If you arrived here looking for iron for your child, the most useful thing we can tell you is this: we don't sell iron.
Pocket Kids, Teens and Adults contain none. It's not an oversight, it's a decision, and the reason is further down.
We wrote this because iron is one of the most common questions from people looking at children's supplements, and because the information available is often supplied by people with iron to sell.
Why iron is different
Almost every nutrient has a comfortable margin between too little and too much. Iron doesn't.
Absorption is low and highly variable. In calculating requirements, EFSA assumes only about 10% of dietary iron is absorbed up to age 11, and about 16% after that. The rest passes through. It's why recommended figures look high against what the body actually uses.
Absorption changes depending on what else is on the plate. Vitamin C increases the absorption of non-haem iron, and it's one of the few nutrient interactions solid enough to be worth acting on at the table. Tea and coffee taken with a meal reduce it.
And excess isn't harmless. This is where iron parts company with everything else. With most nutrients, a little too much is simply excreted. Iron doesn't work that way, which is why iron supplements at home belong out of reach with the same care as medicines.
Haem and non-haem, and what it changes at dinner
Dietary iron comes in two forms.
Haem iron, found in meat, fish and poultry. It's absorbed relatively easily and isn't much affected by the rest of the meal.
Non-haem iron, found in pulses, dark green vegetables, nuts and fortified cereals. It's absorbed far less readily, and this is the one vitamin C helps.
Which gives you something simple to do: at a meal without meat, adding a source of vitamin C does more than adding more beans. Some pepper, tomato, or fruit afterwards does real work.
The numbers, and the ones we aren't publishing
The reference value used on EU labels is 14 mg. As always, that's a labelling figure rather than a recommendation by age.
For adults, EFSA sets 11 mg a day for men and 16 mg for premenopausal women, with postmenopausal women following the figure for men.
For children and adolescents, EFSA calculates requirements differently, accounting for growth, losses, and the percentage absorbed at each age. We have left the age table out, and the reason is honest: we could not verify each value in an openly accessible source, and this is precisely the nutrient where publishing an approximate number would be irresponsible. EFSA's full opinion is linked at the end.
When to talk to your GP
Iron is the nutrient where the right question is almost never "which supplement should I buy" and almost always "is a blood test worth doing".
Book an appointment if your child eats no meat and nobody guided that transition, if there has been a noticeable and lasting change in energy or appearance, or simply if you're wondering. A blood test answers in days a question an article can't answer at all.
And don't start supplementing before that. It's the only nutrient about which we write that sentence.
Why it's not in our product
Now the answer we promised.
A daily multinutrient is taken by everyone in the house, every day, without a blood test and without supervision. That's entirely appropriate for nutrients with a wide margin, such as the B vitamins or vitamin C.
For iron it's not. Requirements vary enormously between a six year old, a teenage girl and an adult man, excess accumulates, and the decision should sit with whoever knows the person and has the results in front of them.
We could have included a small dose. It would have looked good on the label and solved nothing for anyone who genuinely needed it, while adding iron for everyone who didn't. We would hate to be on that list.
Sources
- EFSA, dietary reference values for iron, 2015
- EU Register of nutrition and health claims
- Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, Annex XIII
Written by Lina and Stanislava, founders of MyDailyPocket. This is here to be useful, not to replace your GP or paediatrician.
