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Drop this iron fish in some soup, and it makes the soup and you healthier.

Great solutions can be so simple.

True
Gates Foundation

What if I told you this iron fish can fix a disease — without pills or doctors — that affects billions of people?

Photos by Lucky Iron Fish.

I'd be telling you the truth.

It's called a Lucky Iron Fish, and all you have to do is cook with it.

It helps people with iron deficiency.

Some diseases are really difficult to fix, especially in places where medical care can be hard to find. Iron deficiency is the most widespread nutritional disease in the world — the World Health Organization says it affects 2 BILLION people.

2 billion people. That means more than 30 percent of all humans are walking around with too few healthy red blood cells, plagued with fatigue, exhaustion, a loss of focus, and being a lot less productive than they could be. (You could be one of them.)

Fortunately, a company called Lucky Iron Fish came up with a simple solution to a big problem. This little fish is made from a piece of iron, and you boil it in soup broth.

Makin' dinner.

When a Lucky Fish is added to a recipe, it can provide an entire family with up to 75% of their daily iron intake.


It couldn't be any easier!

In Cambodia, almost 50 percent of people have an iron deficiency.

And with a majority of them living on less than $1 a day, unable to afford iron supplements or iron-rich foods, those numbers aren't going to drop on their own. It's what drove Chris Charles to come up with a simple idea: just add iron to the food you eat. So Charles worked to develop the concept for the 'Happy Fish', and that became the foundation of the 'Lucky Iron Fish', developed and founded by Gavin Armstrong.

When the idea turned into a real-life venture, the Cambodian province of Kandal tested it out. And that was just the beginning. So far,51,000 people and counting have benefited from a Lucky Fish.

The best part? The locals make the Lucky Iron Fish themselves.


Makin' the fish!

Every fish is made out of local recycled material by local groups, including a cooperative of disabled Cambodians, many of whom were injured by land-mines during the Khmer Rouge. By the community, for the community. I love it.

I think they're on to something. See it all in action:

If a little piece of iron shaped like a fish can have such an impact on families and future generations, what else is out there that we haven't thought of yet?

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