Porridge with molasses: a way to boost your iron levels!

Hello :) So this morning after waking up at 8:30 (such a luxury!), I read a few blogs and came across this recent post from Oh She Glows (and if you don't already read her amazing vegan blog you should!). Angela made an "iron woman gingerbread smoothie" with lots of delicious ingredients, and in particular molasses (see here) which is rich in iron! Angela mentions in the blog that in two tablespoons of it has approx. 7mg of iron and 350mg of calcium (more than a glass of cows milk!).

Well this got me rather excited, and seeing as we had molasses in our cupboard for some unknown reason (actually it was for a cake I never made...), I decided to add some to my porridge this morning for breakfast to see what it would taste like. And it tastes pretty yummy! I only added a teaspoon as it was just an experiment but I could have easily add two. It was a deeply sweet ginger taste, yummo!

I also add a teaspoon of chia seeds to my porridge, which she mentions is also high in iron (woo!) and that we of course need vitamin C to help absorb the iron. Hello raspberries!! :)

So here was my breakfast this morning, with a teaspoon of molasses. You can see the oats are a slightly darker colour.

And here's the molasses...

As a vegetarian I think it's very important to consume iron rich foods so I'll continue to add a teaspoon or two of molasses to my porridge everyday! And the smoothie she made looks pretty awesome too, I'll definitely try it out :)

Have you ever tried molasses? 

Hannah x

P.S. Happy Spring everyone! Bring on the warmer weather!! :)