FE? FU!

 

So I was sitting down and tucking in to my dinner of cottage cheese and almonds, or as I like to call it, "sadness" and I figured I would review the health benefits of said food. I was sure that I was getting enough protein and even a smattering of fat, but I was curious about the amount of iron because I'm still working on growing a solid exoskeleton so I need to keep track of stuff, you know.

I looked at the almonds...1 milligram of iron in 28 nuts (or 1/28th of a milligram per nut, for those fans of fractions, or "franctions" as I like to call them) which accounts for 6% of what some fat cat in congress decided I need to eat each and every day. Politics...amirite?

Then I looked at the cottage cheese label (Friendship, 2%, small curd because I can't handle the big curds). Here's what I noticed when it comes to iron:

Yep, that's right -- zero milligrams in a half-cup serving. But don't worry, that 0 mg is 2% of the recommended daily allowance.

Let's review, shall we?

One milligram is 6% but zero milligrams is 2%. This, clearly, is why I failed math all those times I tried to not fail math.

And theoretically, while I only get 2% by eating half a cup, the zero milligrams I could get if I choose to eat a full cup would add up to 4%. If I eat 25 cups of cottage cheese, then I will get zero milligrams of iron that will be 100% of my daily allowance! The possibilities are endless. In fact, I can choose to eat all sorts of other things that also have zero milligrams of iron, and get my daily allowance that way, right? I'm hoping this works for other nutrients as well. Vitamins more honored in the breach than the observance, indeed.