Rhik Samadder writes the Inspector Gadget column every week in the Guardian. Very often, it is humourous but sometimes is quite serious.
Today's column was a bit of a surprise!
Kitchen gadget review: Lucky Iron Fish – I call this health tool Ozzy Ozbream
Add one of these heavy metal nuggets to your cooking water to suffuse the liquid with enough iron to stave off anaemia – and you can help the world’s poor at the same time
I meant to buy these as christmas presents last year, then forgot. You've reminded me to set several diary reminders next autumn. I like that the company donate one for each sold.
megarub i bet that meal is why I became a vegetarian all those nasty gristly tubes and that strange almost powdery yet rubbery texture - a taste and consitency horror story! Onions were ok tho if a bit slimey. I hope I die having never to taste it again! Mind you with a culinary imagination like mine I only have to think about it and that darn stuff seems to be back in my mouth rolling around endlessly torturing me 🤣😂🤣
Iron in liver is in a different form to the "mineral" iron that you get from standard supplements and, yes, lucky iron fish.
It is absorbed by a different pathway and is less likely to cause gut issues. So there are very good reasons to consume liver - or, possibly, haem (heme) or ferritin supplements. Unfortunately, they are all animal sourced (I think).
megarub I am no saint 30 years of vegetarianism sacrificed by scoffing my daily dose of NDT - those poor piggies dying so I can live. I salute you for succeeding in your weekly liver and onion ordeal and it is great you are benefiting perhaps Ozzy Ozbream will free you of the hepatic solution! Funny that NDT tastes of papaya not pork.
And on that I think you will enjoy this poem: And you know what thought did, by Simon Armitage which somehow seems pertinent to glaciers, Ozzy Ozbream, NDT and liver and onions although it’s about apples (and quite a bit more) it is very beautiful.
That article made me laugh what a curious and clever device.
I have two friends who munch furiously on ice cubes both suffer from anaemia ( one is hyperthyroid and the other is probably hypothyroid but in denial) - apparently it is a sign which always puzzled me till I saw a documentary about glaciers which it turns out contain water (as ice) and iron - lots of it - and nothing much else. That explains it. How we know this subconsciously and crave ice when anaemic seems quite amazing to me.
I have wondered if my penchant for Magnums (double caramel is my fave) could be down to more than pure lack of self control and greed 😂🤣😂
I have forwarded the Ozzy Ozbream info to both of them hopefully that wretched crunching noise will be a thing of the past as they get their iron levels up with that gizmo!
Looks like it has to be sea ice which I presume includes some glaciers
having got my hopes up a bit that I could sidestep the liver and onions and buy a lucky fish instead, I now read this -
Conclusions: Neither the iron ingot nor iron supplements increased hemoglobin concentrations in this population at 6 or 12 mo. We do not recommend the use of the fish-shaped iron ingot in Cambodia or in countries where the prevalence of iron deficiency is low and genetic hemoglobin disorders are high. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT02341586.
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Vitamins and when to take
Results back, advice appreciated please
Your thyroid and iron deficiency stories, please 
Why am I experiencing migraines, muscle twitching and generally feeling poo 💩?!
