{"id":860927,"date":"2026-09-26T03:40:23","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T03:40:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/860927\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T03:40:23","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T03:40:23","slug":"its-a-dynamite-food-why-iron-rich-black-pudding-should-be-part-of-your-diet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/860927\/","title":{"rendered":"‘It\u2019s a dynamite food’: Why iron-rich black pudding should be part of your diet"},"content":{"rendered":"

High in protein and a rich source of easily absorbed iron, blood is a nutritious food, and it has fed and nourished Irish people for centuries. Although some may baulk at the idea of consuming fresh blood \u2014 we won\u2019t mention the liquid leaking out of your steak \u2014 there has always been black pudding, a traditional and delicious food that has a place in Irish history far longer than the tourist classics of soda bread and stout, spiced beef or even spuds.<\/p>\n

Black pudding is not just a historical artefact. It\u2019s a living, changing \u2014 and nutritious \u2014 part of the Irish diet. It\u2019s something that Cork-based food writer Kate Ryan is passionate about: \u201cA black pudding is a complete food. It has everything you need. It has proteins, it has fats, it has minerals, micro- and macronutrients. It\u2019s delicious. Plus, you have all the spices running through it with their individual properties as well. It\u2019s a dynamite food.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blood \u2014 both cow and pig \u2014 is key here, making black pudding a rich source of dietary iron, particularly animal-sourced, or haem iron, which is more easily absorbed than non-haem iron (from plant sources). Iron is an essential mineral, used by the body for making red blood cells to carry oxygen around the body, and a lack of iron can lead to anaemia, causing problems with normal body functions. That said, some black puddings can be high in fat and salt, so it\u2019s worthwhile checking labels.<\/p>\n

Along with appreciating black pudding\u2019s nutritional values, it\u2019s worth taking a new look at this old food to realise how much it epitomises Irish traditional craft, thrift, and a sustainable nose-to-tail appreciation of every bit of the animal, turning what could be wasted into something nourishing and appetising.<\/p>\n

Ryan explores this in her book Blood, Guts and Black Pudding, a fascinating, visceral journey through the history, tradition, and future of this food in Ireland, inviting people to have a new appreciation for pudding. This is not just an academic exercise; Ryan holds frequent events that involve the audience trying a variety of black puddings.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time I do a tasting, I use at least two, potentially four puddings, like a beef blood pudding, a pork blood pudding, one will be fresh [blood], one will be dried [blood],\u201d says Ryan. \u201cIt\u2019s really about getting people to slow down, taste the different varieties and realise that there is actually a huge flavour difference. Black pudding isn\u2019t just one thing. There is a huge variety [of black puddings] and flavour differences, it\u2019s just getting people to engage with it. As ever, it\u2019s about flavour first.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another virtue of black pudding is that it is, essentially, a pre-spiced, pre-seasoned, fast food: \u201cIt\u2019s already cooked, so all you\u2019re really doing is putting it in a pan and heating it,\u201d says Ryan.<\/p>\n

\" Kate Ryan, author of Blood, Guts & Black Pudding. Picture: Joleen Cronin<\/p>\n

Until the domestic practice of keeping pigs declined in the latter half of the 20th century, our ancestors \u2014 perhaps even our parents \u2014 made puddings at home, each household customising it to their own particular palate. This pig would be fattened on boiled potatoes, turnips, and food scraps from the kitchen. When it was killed, friends and neighbours gathered to help with the sticking, salting, bleeding and butchering and were rewarded with fresh meat.<\/p>\n

Traditionally, black pudding was made by the woman of the house to her own recipe, mixing the pig\u2019s blood with ingredients like barley, oatmeal, onions, salt, spices, and herbs. Some puddings were cased in scrubbed intestines; others were moulded in a baking tin. They were then cooked so that they were firm, sliceable and ready for frying.<\/p>\n

A once-yearly treat \u2014 unless you were given some on the day of another pig\u2019s kill \u2014 black pudding was a seasonal fresh meat appreciated in an era before refrigeration, when pork and beef were highly salted for preservation. Meat was expensive, and no part of the animal could be wasted. Using every bit \u2014 the fifth quarter, as the Romans would have it \u2014 made as much sense then, when fully stocked supermarkets did not exist, as it does now with our focus on food security, food waste and sustainability.<\/p>\n

Blood, as Ryan points out, is an intentionally wasted product. Although blood can still be harvested in industrial settings, many producers of Irish black pudding use imported dried blood, sometimes marked on labels as haemoglobin powder.<\/p>\n

A recent research paper from Teagasc called Turning waste into wealth: The hidden potential of animal blood proteins refers to the potential of this wasted resource. As Soudabeh Ghalamara, postdoctoral researcher at Teagasc Food Research Centre, points out, \u201c[animal blood] is not only nutrient-rich but also aligns perfectly with circular economy principles, turning what was once considered waste into valuable high-end products\u201d.<\/p>\n

Regardless of food economics, we can appreciate blood\u2019s nutritional value and flavour on our plates by simply picking up a ring of black pudding at the local shop or a chunk from your neighbourhood butcher. While Ryan advocates consuming all black puddings \u2014 \u201cjust eat that pudding full stop!\u201d \u2014 she has a special gr\u00e1 for fresh blood puddings, the makers of which are in danger of disappearing, as highlighted by the closure of Tipperary\u2019s Inch House Pudding this past summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy rallying cry is to seek out your fresh blood black pudding makers and support them wherever they show up around Ireland,\u201d says Ryan. \u201cTo those in food policy, I would say we need to get a system put in place\u2026 where we can capture, pasteurise, powderise Irish fresh blood into a product that then we can all access, whether that\u2019s pudding makers or as an ingredient in day-to-day food or as a value-added product for additional protein and other foods.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an abundant food source that we are watching go down the drain, and there is an easy way that we could fix it if only there was the will to make it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"High in protein and a rich source of easily absorbed iron, blood is a nutritious food, and it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":860928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[58341,209647,319441,97,269],"class_list":["post-860927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-health-body","tag-health-life","tag-health-nutrition","tag-health","tag-nutrition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=860927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/860928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=860927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=860927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=860927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}