Recently, my iron level has been pretty low (so I can't donate). I was thinking about eating meat once again. Is it worth sacrificing veganism to become a blood/platelet/plasma donor, or should I rather continue being vegan instead of donating blood/platelets/plasma?
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I believe there is a trade off between veganism and health (which may be different for different people), but does it apply to iron specifically? My understanding is that iron supplementation is quite effective and also pretty cheap.
One thing I don’t understand (and probably never will) is why blood donor centers don’t sent donors home with a bottle of iron pills. Maybe they don’t want to be responsible for the occasional case of constipation?
To be honest for some reason, there seems to be some wariness regarding iron supplementation (I am supposed to see a physician before doing this). I currently am not able to do that. Its just lots of people here seem to view blood/platelet/plasma donation as not effective altruism, but view veganism as effective altruism. So I was expecting responses to be more biased towards veganism than blood/platlet/plasma donation...
You could consider adding clams to your diet. Clams, oysters and mussels are all very high in iron, but clams have the most and, if I’m not mistaken, the best (though probably not conclusive) evidence that they don’t feel pain (you’ll want to read up on it and make your own decision as it’s been a long time since I read about it and I don’t remember many details).
I was rejected for blood donation because of low hemoglobin levels. I was worried about messing up the iron supplementation (too much is very bad apparently), so I ate tinned clams once or twice a week and the next time I was well over the minimum.
I should probably add that I’m not vegan and my mom also has low hemoglobin so it could be more of a hereditary thing for me. I also only did this once, but couldn’t manage to keep eating them very often after that and haven’t donated blood in a while. It’s something that would be pretty easy to try out though.
My understanding is that at regular/normal doses, iron supplementation is only really risky for those with hemochromatosis. For most people, the main risk is minor digestive symptoms like constipation. At very high doses it can be toxic, but that is also true of water.
To be clear though, I'm a layperson.
Idk, red cross says check with a physician beforehand. Furthermore, the blood donation center I am currently going to frequently asks if I am taking those supplements before I donate. It seems like there must be something external that is relevant about those supplements - its not just another source of iron.
There's certainly a degree of iron supplementation that needs to be done under a physician's guidance. But I've never seen anything suggesting that supplementing to the extent of a common multivitamin (18 mg/day) needs particular medical oversight.
If you're low iron on a vegan diet, you might or might not have other deficiencies as well (e.g., various B vitamins).
One way to be to evaluate how much compensation you could achieve from blood plasma donation. You could then donate the funds to charities addressing farmed animal welfare and consider whether those funds being donated has a higher net effect on farmed animal welfare than the harm you are causing by increasing demand for factory-farmed meat by resuming an omnivore diet, the benefit you are not generating by increasing demand for vegan products, and the benefit you are not generating by providing others an example of a vegan, thus helping normalize it.
I don't get compensated at all for blood donation/plasma donation/platelet donation...
As I understand it, there is a market price for blood (even though donors are not compensated) which puts a ceiling on the impact of blood donation. The market is regional and private, but I’ve seen prices quoted around the mid hundreds of dollars per unit.