Eat iron-rich foods with those high in vitamin C—and 2 more essential food pairings to maximize your meals

While it's important to have a diet of nutrient-rich foods, how you eat them is essential to getting the most benefit.

To receive the maximum benefit from foods like beans, whole grains, and tomatoes, it helps to pair them with the foods that can help with nutrient absorption.

"Certain plant-based foods have different absorbability rates, and those can change, depending on how you treat those foods and even what you might be eating those foods with," Catherine Perez, a vegan dietitian told CNBC Make It in 2023.

Here are three essential food pairings that can up your nutrient intake, according to Perez.

3 essential food pairings to better absorb the nutrients in healthy foods

1. Eat iron with vitamin C

The iron in plant-based foods that are rich in the nutrient can be better absorbed when you eat them with foods that are high in vitamin C. Cleveland Clinic likens the connection between vitamin C and iron to Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street.

Essentially, "your body has a harder time absorbing non-heme iron, the type found in plant-based foods," according to Cleveland Clinic. And when you eat plant foods high in iron with foods rich in vitamin C, you're able to absorb more iron.

For instance, Perez suggested eating a burrito with beans, which have a healthy serving of iron, with diced bell peppers, which are a good source of vitamin C.

2. Pair antioxidants with fats and fat-soluble vitamins

It turns out that pairing healthy fats with antioxidants can increase the nutrients you get from both. Let's say you're cooking tomatoes, that include the antioxidant lycopene; adding olive oil to the pan is an ideal way to up your nutrient intake from the vegetable.

"If you're making a tomato sauce and you're using extra virgin olive oil with the tomatoes and cooking them down, that's going to help you activate and absorb lycopene a lot better than if you didn't have that fat there at all," Perez told Make It.

Another great example is adding a dressing that includes healthy oils like soybean oil to your salads, a 2017 study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found. "A spoonful or two of salad dressing may indeed help you derive the optimal nutritional benefit from your veggies," the press release states.

3. Get your calcium with vitamin D

"When you have those calcium-rich foods and you have enough vitamin D in your diet, your body is going to be able to absorb it better," Perez said.

"People who don't get enough calcium and vitamin D throughout life have an increased chance of having thin and brittle bones (osteoporosis) in their later years," according to Kaiser Permanente. And "your body needs vitamin D to absorb calcium."

Having calcium-rich foods like canned salmon with bones, egg yolks or milks and yogurts, as you take a walk outside can greatly benefit you. The source of vitamin D you'll receive from the sunlight can help you get more calcium, Perez noted.

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