How many licks would it take? Can the iron in bars even be processed by the body? Can you do this for other minerals?

    • Droechai
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      52 years ago

      Breakfast cereals made of liver and spinach feel like an unexplored market

    • @[email protected]
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      292 years ago

      A little cat iron puck was introduced in an Asian region with high iron-deficiecy in the poorer population, but nobody used it. So they did some research and changed it to resemble a fish instead and it took right off. Turns out the local culture considered fish lucky or something.

  • @[email protected]
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    122 years ago

    I’ve read once that eating iron won’t do anything for your iron intake, but for example sticking some rusty nails through an apple for a while and then eating the apple would.

  • Davel23
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    382 years ago

    I saw someone do a demonstration once, they took a box of “iron-fortified” breakfast cereal, dumped it into a bowl, then ran a magnet through it. The magnet picked up some of the dust from the bottom of the bowl, that dust being the tiny iron particles that were added to the cereal to “fortify” it.

    • Ech
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      2 years ago

      I’m not sure why you’re putting those words in quotes as if they’re incorrect.

      • @[email protected]
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        12 years ago

        put the ‘‘words’’ in quotes because in context it’s definitely ‘‘absurd bullshit’’ and this is how i know that key on my keyboard doesn’t work i have to use a different key so thanks

        • Ech
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          2 years ago

          How is it “absurd bullshit”? Do you think it’s somehow a different element? At worst, it’s as bullshit as any other vitamin supplement, in that it’s technically helpful, but just far more than your body can make use of.

            • Ace
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              12 years ago

              the video in question

              There’s not just one video of this. It’s a pretty common and accessible experiment. Anyone with a magnet and cereal can try it themselves.

        • @[email protected]
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          42 years ago

          Tiny amounts of iron distributed throughout a piece of cereal don’t have enough of a magnetic charge to lift the weight of a piece of cereal. Pieces of cereal dust with higher concentrations of iron very much could. Those results aren’t especially surprising

        • Urist
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          22 years ago

          Grammar is just “rules” and “rules” were invented by “humans”. You can put “quotations” around whatever you “want”, nobody can “stop” you.

          Be the “absurd bullshit” you want to see in the world! Breakfast cereal “is” a scam!

      • Davel23
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        82 years ago

        I put them in quotes as the word has no objective meaning as applied to a breakfast cereal, it’s simply a marketing term. I did not intend to imply that ingested iron particles are not a valid source of iron for human biology.

        • Ech
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          12 years ago

          Fair enough. Personally I don’t think the words are an issue. It’s not medically applicable, but it’s just cereal, so *shrug*

  • tygerprints
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    22 years ago

    This is the reason prisoners are so healthy and full of vim and vitality. (right…)

    UMMM I don’t think you can get iron in your diet this way. First off, it’s unlikely you’re going to find a bar of pure iron anyway, since most metal bars are composites of many minerals.

    Also, the iron has to specifically be in an ingestible form so the liver can process it. An iron bar ain’t a lollipop. (maybe that should be a slogan for something).

    When they say that cereal has added iron, they really mean that actual bits of iron are added (very tiny particles). You can use a magnet to pull some of them out, they’re little iron filings.

    So if you file the bar down first and eat the filings, MAYBE it would contribute to your iron intake. But - why not just grab some milk and eat the cereal instead?

    • @[email protected]
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      102 years ago

      Quick Google search suggests that using cast iron cookware increases your iron intake. I’d imagine the heat process has something to do with it though, so still incredulous that licking an iron bar would be effective, though I’m at a very minor maybe.

    • tiredofsametab
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      72 years ago

      Japan has traditional iron kettles (that are stupidly expensive) and they’re often mentioned by doctors for use in people who have iron deficiency here. That or iron pans. They even make an iron ball to put in normal kettles and such, but that weirds me out a bit.

  • Smuuthbrane
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    282 years ago

    And which is more bioavailable, metallic iron or iron oxide? Do we want to lick clean iron or rusty iron??

    • tygerprints
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      312 years ago

      You can get all the iron you need from vegetables and certain meat or even taking supplements. There’s no need to go about eating rusty metal. In fact, my doctor has advised me not to eat nails. I have to trust what he says, he’s printed out several impressive medical degrees.

  • @[email protected]
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    142 years ago

    Licking a rusty bar seems like it would be a good way to abrade your tongue and contract tetanus.

    • @[email protected]
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      352 years ago

      Tetanus is a bacteria that lives in soil. It’s only associated with rust because rust gives more surface area to allow dirt to accumulate on which bacteria can survive, and because iron objects are often sharp enough to pierce the skin. If you were cut with a gleaming razer that had just had soil smeared on it you’d have a good chance of contracting tetanus!

        • @[email protected]
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          62 years ago

          If your feet get cut, sure. This is why tetanus vaccine is given as post-exposure prophylaxis in many places if you get a wound that breaks the skin.

      • monotremata
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        2 years ago

        It’s also because the bacterium in question is anaerobic, so it dies in an oxygen environment; rusting consumes oxygen, so it helps preserve the bacterium longer out of soil.

        Edit: I had always been told this, but evidently it isn’t true. The rust does not seem to have any effect on the bacterium that causes tetanus. Apologies for spreading misinformation.

        • @[email protected]
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          62 years ago

          I’d be quite surprised if rusting could consume oxygen fast enough to make a difference there?

          • @[email protected]
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            22 years ago

            Yeah, this is a strange mix of information being conveyed. Tetanus is indeed caused by an anaerobe, and it’s caused by a puncturing wound. The depth of the wound is what causes the oxygen-free environment. The correlation with iron, from my understanding, is solely because a nail can easily cause such a puncture. A nail stepped on in the general environment can easily innoculate the wound with with the relatively common Clostridium tetani bacteria, which causes tetanus. I don’t think rust is a factor, though I’ve been wrong before.

            • monotremata
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              32 years ago

              Yeah, you’re right. This is something I was taught at one point, and I guess I never questioned it because it sounded plausible. Sorry! I have updated my comment to reflect this.

  • @[email protected]
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    572 years ago

    Some kind of iron piece is given in some African countries to fight iron deficiency by putting it in the food while it’s cooking, so it works.

  • Unaware7013
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    2 years ago

    When my wife was pregnant, a buddy gave her an old cast iron pan and told her to heat applesauce in it. Said it should help her iron deficiency, too bad we’re to add to have remembered…

    • BaroqueInMind
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      2 years ago

      a buddy gave her an old cast iron pan and told her to hear applesauce in it

      Did she mention how the apple sauce sounded like? Why even involve the cast iron pan, and just simply squirt some directly into the ear canal?

  • @[email protected]
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    2 years ago

    Not necessarily licking (I mean, if you do it enough…), but this is a thing

    Cool story with interesting social, cultural, and scientific interactions.

    It may have been discredited outside of simple iron deficiency since I last read about it, but dietary studies on humans are notoriously difficult to do.

    • body_by_make
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      92 years ago

      We used one of these with our daughter when she had a concerning iron deficiency. I’m not super sure if it helped since we also started feeding her more iron containing foods, but it didn’t hurt 🤷‍♂️

      • @[email protected]
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        32 years ago

        This specific thing? Or just an iron chunk of some type?

        The reason I know about this is the social aspect of trying to get people with endemic iron deficiency to use a supplement. If you’re from the more industrialized would, I’d figure you’d take supplements that, while more expensive, may or may not be more effective.

        • body_by_make
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          2 years ago

          Our daughter was less than 12 months old and had a cow milk protein allergy that was causing her to throw up most of the formula we were giving her (the allergy took us a while to figure out). We opted for trying to improve iron intake before going to pills, though if she was still deficient at her next check up that would have been what we did.