I know that you can’t eat stuff made of iron, but I don’t know WHY you can’t just eat iron stuff. I know iron supplements exist how is that different?
In: Biology
The particles are small enough that you can eat them without noticing. If you crush up breakfast cereal with a magnet you can pull out iron, it’s exactly the same element
The iron in food and supplements is a different form that our bodies can absorb, unlike the metal iron which is indigestible and harmful.
>I know that you can’t eat stuff made of iron
Yes you can.
>I don’t know WHY you can’t just eat iron stuff
Because too much iron is bad and the good amount is very small.
>iron supplements exist how is that different?
Again, the amount. The supplements have a good, beneficial amount of iron, which is like 0.018 grams. But iron is iron, it’s the same stuff. The supplements give you a beneficial amount while keeping you safe from overdose. But you can get dietary iron from food cooked in cast iron pans and it’s the same thing. Cereal[ literally has tiny metallic iron flecks added to it to provide iron](https://www.rookieparenting.com/finding-iron-in-breakfast-cereal-science-experiment/). There’s nothing special about the supplements, they’re just and easy and safe way to get the proper amount. But you could just boil nails and drink the resulting broth if you wanted, it’s just less convenient and would probably taste bad so most people do the supplements instead.
wild iron potentially has other stuff as well that could be bad for you, while “healthy” food tends to have bunch of other good stuff, and iron might be easier to process by gut…
normal food has had lots of “experimenting”, “foods” that also contain chemicals that make you sick get excluded over time.
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