Iron deficiency (ID) and iron-deficiency anemia (IDA) are global problems that affect more than 2 billion people accounting for 0.8 million deaths annually worldwide. Consequently, sustainable food-based approaches are being advocated to increase the intake of foods with high iron content and bioavailability. Our research includes food-based approaches to tackle iron deficiency. It seeks to employ and exploit the synergy among dietary components to enhance and promote iron absorption from plant-based foods. For example, processing procedures, such as food micro-milling, fermentation or hydrothermal treatment are employed to influence luminal bioaccessibility and absorption of minerals from foods. Our studies demonstrated that the disruption of aleurone cell walls by micro-milling increased iron bioaccessibility and bioavailability in Caco-2 cells. Consequently, enrichment of foods by processed micro-milled aleurone could offer a natural, stable, safe additive to significantly increase bioavailable iron, as a practical strategy to prevent iron deficiency in the population. Our studies have also demonstrated how interactions between nutrients and bioactives may affect bioaccesibility and subsequently bioactivity of food components