A Tiny Fish Could Help Curb a Global Public Health Problem

Eating more fish is generally considered a healthy thing to do. In rural Cambodia, where fish is both a staple and cultural touchstone and iron deficiency is common, a small swimmer may be part of a solution to a problem that, globally, costs billions annually. The catch is, no one has to eat this fish to enjoy its benefits.

The World Bank estimates that anemia, a condition caused by severe iron deficiency and marked by lack of energy, cuts $50 billion from the global GDP every year. Christopher Charles, 28, believes his Lucky Iron Fish could help stem that loss and turn lives around in the villages surrounding Phnom Penh. The fish, made of ferrous iron, is supposed to be dropped into a pot of soup or sauce as it simmers, imbuing the meal with its vital trace mineral. According to the Lucky Iron Fish website—the company is a B Corp, and follows a TOMS-esque one-for-one model—a single fish can provide a family of four with 90 percent of its iron for up to five years.

Charles isn’t the first to look at the metal iron and wonder if cooking with it can help provide the nutrient iron without having to overhaul the contents of a diet. A review of prior research on the subject published in the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics in 2003 found that cooking with iron “may be a promising innovative intervention for reducing iron deficiency and iron deficiency anaemia.” But the increased iron intake of subjects in the studies analyzed appeared to vary rather drastically, and the authors said compliance with using the iron cookware was very low in some countries while other cultures seemed more willing to use the pans regularly.

Charles ran into the same problem regarding adoption, and that’s part of the reason why he’s selling iron fish instead of anything else cast in iron. After trying and failing to get people to put a block of iron into the food they cooked, “I stumbled across this one kind of fish that’s called the try kantrop, and it’s associated with luck in village folklore, so it had the added benefit of being attractive and sort of resonated with people in a luck and good health and well-being sense,” he told NPR. “And it really helped sell the idea to the Cambodian people I was working with and get them on board the project.”

Thanks to tourists traveling in Cambodia who have purchased them, as well as online sales, Lucky Iron Fish is now distributing several thousand of the iron fish across Cambodia with the help of NGO partners.

While there is still no scientific consensus on whether cooking with iron definitively increases iron levels in the people who eat the food, Lucky Iron Fish is conducting its own case studies, and Charles told NPR the results are promising. After nine months of cooking with the iron fish daily, a 50 percent decline in anemia and an increase in iron levels was documented in test subjects.

“Before, I felt tired and lazy and my chest shook when I was tired,” Sot Mot, 60, who took part in one of the trials, told NPR. “But after I use the fish, I have strength and energy to work, and I sleep well too.”