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One of the teas you’ll often see recommended postpartum is nettle tea. I’ll admit, it doesn’t sound particularly appetizing. Yes, that nettle. The plant covered in tiny stingers that leave fiery white welts on your skin. As a kid, I used to rub fern juice on the burns after brushing against it.

But here I am, years later, drinking it by choice. Luckily, in tea form, it doesn’t sting. I’ve been trying to add more nettle tea lately since it’s said to boost milk supply. And judging by my baby’s growing rolls, demand is definitely high. Nettle tea is also praised for postpartum recovery and nutrients, including iron. Supposedly, it’s a “great natural source of iron.”

Tea? Iron? That’s where I get confused.

Tea is packed with polyphenols, the very compounds I’ve been obsessively studying for months (thanks to my coffee habit + chronic sleep deprivation + propensity for iron deficiency). And polyphenols are well-known for blocking iron absorption. Coffee and tea are even flagged as culprits iron deficiency if you drink to much.

So how can a tea be “iron-rich”?

💰 What “Iron-Rich” Really Means

When a food is called iron-rich, it doesn’t mean it can actually cover much of your daily needs (18 mg for pre-menopausal women¹ ).

Usually, it means just two things:

1. The food has more iron compared to others in its category.

2. It says nothing about how much of that iron your body can actually absorb (bioavailability).

Let’s look at some examples:

🍵 Teas

• Nettle tea: 2.8-5.5 mg iron per cup → called “iron-rich” 🩸

• Green tea: ~0.05-0.72 mg per cup.

• Chamomile tea: ~1.2 mg per cup.

Yes, nettle has more that other teas. Plus, it carries vitamin C, which helps a little with absorption. But even several cups could maybe give you only a small percentage of your daily needs.

🥦 Vegetables

• Spinach (1 cup cooked): ~6 mg → called “iron-rich” 🩸

• Broccoli (1 cup cooked): ~1 mg.

Spinach looks great on paper. But only about 2% of that iron is typically absorbed.

🥩 Meats

• Beef (3 oz): ~2–3 mg heme iron → called “iron-rich” 🩸

• Chicken thigh (3 oz): ~1 mg heme iron.

Beef has less total iron than spinach, but because it’s heme iron, your body absorbs it far better.

Our use of “iron-rich” shows how food labeling and marketing can be misleading. The real question isn’t just how much iron is in the food, but how much can I actually absorb?

👉 How to think about it instead:

• Treat “iron-rich” claims as relative, not absolute.

• Think in meals and patterns, not one “superfood.”

💬 What’s your go-to superfood? Does it live up to the hype?

1  The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) adjusts for bioavailability scenarios.