Eating Iron For Breakfast

Everybody loves magnets. They stick to some things and not to others. They push. They pull. They are almost magical. Did you know that you can use a magnet to pull the iron out of your food? All it takes is a really strong magnet, a blender, and a little scientific know-how.

Here’s What You Need

• 2-3 cups of Total cereal
• Small neodymium magnet
• Warm water
• Small Ziploc bag
• Blender

Here’s What You Do

Pour the cereal into the blender. Add enough water to completely cover the cereal. You are creating a cereal smoothy (mmmm, mmm good), so you may need to add more water to create the right texture. Using the blender, create a cereal-water mixture. The more finely ground the cereal is, the easier it will be to get the iron. Carefully, pour your mixture into the Ziploc bag and seal it tightly.

Lay the bag on its side and slowly drag magnet all over the side of bag. Do this for about one minute. Make sure you don’t lift the magnet from the surface of the bag during this time. After a minute, quickly lift the magnet from the side of the bag. What do you see? You should be able to see black particles floating on top the cereal. Congratulations! You have just pulled iron out of breakfast cereal.

The Science Behind Eating Iron

You can find iron on the periodic table of elements. Its chemical symbol is Fe. Our bodies need this metal to function. It is found in a very important component of your blood, called hemoglobin. Hemoglobin allows the red blood cells in the blood to carry oxygen from your lungs to the rest of your body. It’s the iron in hemoglobin that gives blood its red appearance. In fact, you have enough iron in your body to make two small nails.

If your body does not get enough iron, you may experience fatigue, reduced resistance to diseases, and increased heart and respiratory rates. Nutritionists recommend that a healthy adult get about 18 mg of iron each day.

Because your body needs iron, the folks that make breakfast cereals like Total fortify the cereal with food-grade iron particles (metallic iron) as a mineral supplement. Some people think the metallic iron is digested in the stomach and absorbed in the small intestine. However, there are many nutritionists who believe that the metallic iron actually passes through your system without being absorbed at all. However, because magnets attract iron, you are able to pull the small iron particles from the cereal mixture with a very strong magnet.

Check out the fun of iron, the very same thing you find in cereal. We use magnets to discovery what iron does!