I wanted to eat Soap...

Several years ago, I developed this strong fettish of smelling soap. I actually wanted to eat it, but knew something was wrong with that so I would just sniff it. I would sniff it while I was in the shower. I would rub it on my hands and walk around the house sniffing it. I was often tempted to put it in my mouth, but my stronger mind kicked in and told me “no.”  I had a problem. I knew I had a problem. In addition to this problem with soap, I was extra tired when I would run. Whereas, I was ordinarily able to run 6 miles straight, it seemed that I could not run a mile without becoming extremely tired. Something was not making sense. I needed answers. I received the answer shortly after all of these symptoms. As I was walking around the lake one day, I heard a voice say to me (I call Him God), “you have iron deficiency anemia.” I thought, “Hmmm. Okay.” Since I was a nutrition student, I had plenty of notes on minerals our body needs, so when I returned home, I looked at my notes and saw symptoms of iron deficiency anemia that included: extremely fatigued, heavy menstrual cycles, and PICA practices (strong desire to eat things that are not food; i.e. dirt, nails, and….soap). I knew this was the culprit. I immediately went to the doctor who took labs and later confirmed it. They showed me the results of several of the labs, but just to give you an indication of my condition, my serum ferritin level (stores and releases iron) was supposed to be at least 10 for this particular lab. My level…was 2. It was suggested I start taking iron pills (ferrous sulfate) immediately, and after doing this, I started to improve.

We all need iron. Men and women can become anemic from not getting enough of it. I always believe that we can usually get the nutrients we need out of food. However, I had to take pills. I only had to take pills because of how chronic my condition had become. But food is usually the best source for iron, unless you have some type of medical condition. So, for the normal person, here are a few good sources of iron:

-Most Ready to Eat Cereals and Grains (i.e. rice) (mainly because most all of our cereals/grains are fortified with thiamin, niacin, and iron) (fortified means you put in a product a nutrient that was not naturally in the product)

-Beef and Liver

-Most Beans

-Spinach

-Turkey, chicken, and fish

There are many other good sources of iron that can be found at the reference site below. The only thing I didn’t like about it was that most foods at the top of the list are processed foods. These processed foods probably only made the list because of them being fortified with iron. Nonetheless, I found it to be a great reference to use in finding out how much iron is in the food we eat.

Until next time…

P.S. If you are experiencing any of the symptoms I experienced, you definitely need to talk with a doctor, as supplementation may be needed.

-Jenelle Robinson

Reference: USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 24

Iron, Fe (mg) Content of Selected Foods per Common Measure, sorted by nutrient content. Retrieved from https://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/12354500/Data/SR24/nutrlist/sr24w303.pdf.