Cindy Moore, MS, RD Responds:

If you eat a variety of foods each day, including animal products, fortified foods, and a variety of fruits and vegetables, then you should be able to meet your iron needs. However, some people, especially women of childbearing age, develop iron-deficiency anemia, which happens when you don’t get enough iron in your diet.

Red blood cells depend on iron to ferry oxygen throughout the body. With iron-deficiency anemia, your blood’s ability to transport oxygen throughout the body drops, leaving you feeling run-down or weak.

Animal products, including lean meat, dark-meat poultry, shellfish and other seafood, and eggs provide food sources of iron. The iron in meat is called heme iron (from hemoglobin), which is more easily absorbed by your body.

Though meats are often the first iron sources to come to mind, plant-based foods provide more iron, on average, to the diet. Iron from plant sources is called nonheme iron. Excellent sources are iron-fortified cereals and pastas, lentils and other legumes, and dark-green leafy vegetables such as spinach.

Nonheme iron is better absorbed in an acidic environment, so try pairing an iron-rich plant food with a vitamin C–rich food or drink.