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3. " have higher iron density " Actually, it doesn't surprise me in the least. Very many foods contain much more Fe than meat. But density is, largely, irrelevant. Stainless steel is 98% Fe but, if you swallow a small bar of it, you'd poop it right out without absorbing mg of Fe.

What matters is the "effective density" or, for a given gm of food, how many mg of Fe does your body take from it?

4. " too much iron can be harmful"

Indeed. And very many fascinating studies are coming out associating Fe with very many modern ailments (the modern post-industrial age fellow eating meat in excess).

Women do excrete quite a bit of it though and they, and growing kids, need iron.

2. I'm not doubting that vegans can be healthy, but its not universally true. There are people who cannot absorb non animal sourced iron. these people don't stay vegans for very long (they either die, or quit). Either way, those who cannot absorb iron don't stay in in the vegan pool [0].

I'm guessing your link refers to this point. The study is culturally dependent (a study on healthy Chinese men eating real Chinese food).

Also, non-healthy people didn't get recruited to the study (therefore selecting the sample for people who can absorb vegetable iron)

[0] This point is important. Let's say you have a group of people which includes people with weak-ish livers. These people feel sick when their livers are stressed.

Now you do a study on the effects of moderate alcohol consumption vs. total abstinence. The people who feel ill when their livers are stressed are, all else being equal, more likely to be teetotalers.

Well your sample of moderate drinkers now, on the whole, are being drawn from a healthier population. This skews your result.

bioavailability of nutrients is a very neglected topic when people discuss nutrition.

Most Dr. I've spoken to aren't even aware that iron from animal sources is far more available than from plants (the consequence being that my wife was able to avoid the iron containing pre-natal vitamin, which causes her nausea, after blood work confirmed her iron levels were great)

Actually, weight and height are very good indicators of general health. Anyway, the information it gives is already more than appears to be in use.

There's no need for blood work to spot the obese three year old kid at day care who is well on the road to juvenile Type II diabetes. The poor girl is wider than she is tall. A simple BMI metric and the Dr. should be able to tell the parents they need to lay off the carbs.