I have since read that with hypo. You shouldn't have linseeds or the protein powder, and prolly not the milk either. Is this true? I'm having difficulties knowing what have instead. I know there is eggs and cheese and stuff but I find it hard to eat that in the morning and in truth I don't have time to cook so early in the day. My smoothie was one I've had for ages and I thought it was healthy.
What does anyone think please? Thank you.
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Northie
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Northie, why the skim milk? Why not add semi-skim (2% fat)?
I don't know why, if someone can digest milk, it would be contra-indicated for thyroid patients. It is a source of dietary iodine.
A few months ago I found out that my daughter has been drinking almond milk (NO IODINE) and they were cooking with pickling salt (NO IODINE)................She's been drinking real milk and using iodized salt since then. She has lost 10 pounds and the other day ran 20 kilometers non-stop. (To me she was looking a bit on the hypo side, napping whenever she could etc., fat under her chin, and alarmingly growing a gut...........she's got more energy these days. She was also drinking some sort of meal replacement concoction for some months that contained all sorts of little amounts of 'stuff'. That kept her 'regular' but adding back the missing iodine has helped with that all on its own. I asked her to go to the doctor and get her thyroid checked (but she's so lazy and has not got me the blood test results yet) but that was before I found out about the stupid almond milk and the pickling salt............a mother's job is never done.)
I drink Skimmed Milk, not because I want Low Fat, but because it is the ONLY milk which is not homogenised. The fat in homogenised milk is as bad for you as trans fat. I eat plenty of other fats such as butter, creme fraiche and coconut oil to make up for the lost fat in the milk, and I also buy Jersey UNhomogenised milk when I can. I will not touch homogenised milk. I don't have all these artificial milks either.
As the additive E171 it has to be listed on the ingredients, does it not? Looked it up and most sites suggests skimmed milk 'often' has Titanium Dioxide.
Mostly I get Duchy Originals milk from Waitrose, in which case I have full milk anyway, but if I run out I get Organic Skimmed Milk. I intend to find out which companies DO put it in and which companies don't. Better still, I will make quite certain I don't run out of unhomogenised full cream milk.
same stuff as in white paint! So proper ordinary milk is homogenised? - I'll go looksie....
Don't think they add iodine to milk - but there used to be more in it as the teats were wiped with a strong iodine solution - throw away wipes now! I did get cheap iodised salt from lidl or aldi, but I tend to get the french grey seasalt now.
I think that's where I went wrong - seeing how milk was produced put me off it, and yoghurt makes me cringe.... J
Sparerib, cattle and sheep are given mineral blocks to lick. I looked them up recently because of all this thyroid business overdose I'm suffering from. (Being a Thyroid Crusader and all. LOL)
These mineral blocks contain significant amounts of iodine.. So milk from cows contains about 300 micrograms iodine per litre in the UK and Canada. The U.S. is different. Depending on the ground water content of iodine, the mineral blocks are varied. So in Texas, for example, milk contains negligible amounts of iodine.
This whole thing is so complicated and geographically determined.
BTW sheep milk in England contains OOODLES of iodine. Don't drink it. Eat the cheese but don't drink a litre per day or you get too much.
Please bear in mind that breast tissue is an iodine sponge and requires iodine to be healthy. It's not all about thyroid.
Titanium dioxide is added to cosmetics as well. (Better than lead, ask Queen Elizabeth I except she's all bones now.)
It's not likely to be much of a problem seeing as how it's used in implants (hip and dental).
It is possible that titanium dioxide is not used universally to whiten skimmed milk.
The problem with using it for hip replacements in younger people is titanium is not THAT strong. It can break from shear forces. So cobalt-chromium hips have been manufactured..................but, and this is recent: a doctor in Germany diagnosed a patient with chromium poisoning because of the hip replacement and he connected the dots because of a House episode.
I have only watched 3 House episodes, but I think I need to watch them all. Everyone tells me about them but I hate 'hit and miss' diagnostics.
There were several interesting UK TV programmes about what goes into food, I only bother to watch TV if it's recommended, my hubby worked in a meat factory & knows a bit - they pump oxygen into the package to make the meat appear redder for a start.
[A daft fact is that my brother was chosen to be stroke in the rowing team over Hughie; much prefer him in black adder ]
Over here pigs are knocked out with carbon monoxide. Once they are unconscious they are stunned and then their necks are cut.
It's all disgusting. But better than what goes on in the village.......if you have no knowledge of how pigs are killed in the village....you are a fortunate person. Even the people who butcher the pigs have to get right royally drunk because the squealing and the other pigs squealing is unbearable. We humans are really too much. I think they should get the pigs pissed drunk too actually come to think of it. Pigs love beer.
The 'good old days' weren't.
Hugh is an interesting person. He may not have been great at rowing (and let's face it, he's pretty scrawny), he's got a lot of capabilities and talent.
I remember back in the late 60s when I lived in London (Putney), we got the pint bottles of milk delivered. I'd come home from school and drink a whole bottle. I would not shake it up. The cream on top was so delicious.
I grew 7 inches in 1 year! LOL! So I don't buy any of the nonsense that protein in milk or calcium in milk does not get used by the body.
Lovely lovely milk.
Then when I lived in Plymouth in the mid 1980s the milk bottles had to be hidden in the hedge because people would steal it. My goodness, how times changed. We couldn't even get milk delivered home, it had to be at my husband's workplace because where we lived the bottles could not be hidden sufficiently for people to not steal the stuff.
That Is a US site, and it refers to US milk producers, Titanium Dioxide is already banned in Germany, and I do suspect that the milk which contains Titanium Dioxide is the cheap stuff. I loved milk when the cream rose to the top, which is why I hate homogenised. We would use the cream of the milk for pouring over desserts and then the milk used for tea and coffee was, in effect, skimmed. I just looked at my milk and it has a distinct blueish colour to it, which I have often noticed before. Nothing on the ingredients list except milk.
I remember a good few years ago I had started to notice that when heating skimmed milk from Costco (where I worked at the time) it would actually form a sticky deposit on the bottom of the pan, which would burn even before the milk was hot. That was probably titanium Dioxide!
Thanks for this information, it has made me more wary of buying 'budget' milk.
marram, when we heat milk, the protein gets burned to the bottom of the pan. Interesting that the lactose gets turned into lactulose as well, so milk that's been boiled up a couple of times has less lactose than fresh milk.
Then when cooled it grows a skin on top which is protein. My grandmother did the old country boil the milk thing even though since she was living where milk was pasteurized old habits die hard.
The thing is with most large dairy milks, they've been adulterated with powder as well. My kefir grains know the difference. But these days I can't get the dairy milk they really like.
Nothing is simple anymore.
Also organic milk contains 40% less iodine than common garden variety regular milk. This has been flagged as a potential problem in the UK.
How does that happen, that organic milk contains less iodine? Unless that refers to supermarket organic, rather than grass-fed organic. Mind you, there is iodine in thyroid medication anyway, and in the process of using it our bodies de-iodise it, so the body MUST be doing something with the leftover iodine.
It is suggested that organic fed cows consume much higher levels of goitrogens in their diets. That ends up with reduced iodine uptake, hence less iodine to go into the milk.
I am not entirely convinced of the mechanism but the idea of it being generally lower iodine content appears well founded. Here is one significant study:
Iodine concentration of organic and conventional milk: implications for iodine intake.
Bath SC1, Button S, Rayman MP.
Author information
1Nutritional Sciences Division, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, UK.
Abstract
Iodine is required for adequate thyroid hormone production, which is essential for brain development, particularly in the first trimester of pregnancy. Milk is the principal source of iodine in UK diets, and while small studies in Europe have shown organic milk to have a lower iodine concentration than conventional milk, no such study has been conducted in Britain. In view of the increasing popularity of organic milk in the UK, we aimed to compare the iodine concentration of retail organic and conventional milk and to evaluate regional influences in iodine levels. Samples of organic milk (n 92) and conventional milk (n 80), purchased from retail outlets in sixteen areas of the UK (southern England, Wales and Northern Ireland), were analysed for iodine using inductively coupled plasma MS. The region of origin of the milk was determined from information on the label. Organic milk was 42·1 % lower in iodine content than conventional milk (median iodine concentration 144·5 v. 249·5 ng/g; P < 0·001). There was no difference in the iodine concentration of either conventional or organic milk by area of purchase. However, a difference was seen in iodine concentration of organic milk by region of origin (P < 0·001). The lower iodine concentration of organic milk has public-health implications, particularly in view of emerging evidence of iodine deficiency in UK population sub-groups, including pregnant women. Individuals who choose organic milk should be aware that their iodine intake may be compromised and should ensure adequate iodine intake from alternative sources.
Animal. 2014 Apr;8(4):580-6. doi: 10.1017/S1751731113002474. Epub 2014 Jan 17.
The use of seaweed from the Galician coast as a mineral supplement in organic dairy cattle.
Rey-Crespo F1, López-Alonso M2, Miranda M3.
Author information
Abstract
This study was designed to assess the value of seaweeds from the Galician coast as a source of minerals (especially iodine (I) but also other micro-minerals) in organic dairy cattle. It was conducted in an organic dairy farm in the Lugo province that typically represents the organic milk production in NW Spain. The animal's diet consisted mainly of local forage (at pasture or as hay and silage in the winter) and 5 kg of purchased concentrate/day per animal (representing 23.5% of feed intake). Based on the mineral composition of the diet, the physiological requirements and the EU maximum authorised levels in feed, a supplement composed by Sea Lettuce (Ulva rigida) (as flakes, 80%), Japanese Wireweed (Sargasum muticum) (flakes, 17.5%) and Furbelows (Saccorhiza polyschides) (powder, 2.5%) was formulated to give 100 g/animal per day. Sixteen Holstein Friesian lactating cows were randomly selected and assigned to the control (n=8) and algae-supplemented groups (n=8). Both groups had exactly the same feeding and management with the exception of the algae supplement, which was mixed with the concentrate feed and given to the animals at their morning milking for 10 weeks. Heparinised blood (for plasma analysis) and milk samples were collected at 2-week intervals and analysed for toxic and trace element concentrations by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry or inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry. The algae supplement significantly improved the animals' mineral status, particularly I and selenium that were low on the farm. However, the effect of the algae supplement on the molybdenum status in cattle needs further investigation because of its great relevance on copper metabolism in ruminants. The I supply deserves special attention, since this element is at a very high concentration in brown-algae species and it is excreted in the milk proportionally to its concentration in plasma concentrations (mean ± s.e. in the algae-supplemented and control groups were 268 ± 54 and 180 ± 42 µg/l, respectively).
Rod, what will be interesting as time goes on is the iodine content of soils in western Europe. Historically kelp and other seaweeds were used in furnaces where glass was produced.
This is not happening anymore so the iodine which would get airborne from this process is also not happening.
Here's an article on the use of seaweeds in Europe (and mostly France):
The Irish used seaweed as part of the fertilization for the potato crop. Many coastal Europeans did the same thing. People got their micronutrients and minerals. Nowadays the chemical fertilizers just don't contain all the elements found in natural fertilizers. The organic food industry does not actually fully take this into consideration. It's mostly about not using certain types of chemicals as insecticides, herbicides and fungicides. Which is why organic doesn't necessarily mean 'better'.
The article I've linked explains how people traditionally used seaweeds for many things. Iodine in seaweed evaporates. So even sleeping on a mattress that is partly filled with seaweed will provide iodine to the sleeper. It's very interesting. Dried seaweeds eventually do not contain anywhere near the amount they had in them when they were fresh.
Also not all seaweeds are rich in iodine. Nori (the crunchy stuff sold in packages as snacks or wrapped around sushi) contains negligible iodine. Frying it reduces the iodine content further.
Wales is well known for its laver bread. Last time I was there a rather superior burger van was offering burgers from local fresh beef in rolls with laver. What I could see looked very appealing though I never go to the usual burger outlets.
You used to be able to buy liquid plant fertiliser based on seaweed but I have not seen it in some considerable time.
Some years ago I read Mark Kurlansky's book 'The Big Oyster' about New York city and the incredible amounts of oysters people ate back in the 1800s. It's no wonder that New York City was such an incredible place of creativity. Any poor schmuck could buy raw, shucked oysters on the street corner.
It's like in England when shellfish were eaten like a snack just anyplace in London. Samuel Pepys and his bushels of oysters.........
I don't believe anything sold simply as skimmed milk in the UK can have titanium dioxide added - and judging by the greenish watery stuff that you see, it doesn't look as if it is added!
Possibly one of the branded liquid milk products has, possibly milkshakes, or other things not sold simply "skimmed milk".
I think most supermarket milk, even skimmed, is homogenised. Several brands of organic milk are not homogenised eg Duchy Originals, Waitrose and M&S, plus all the raw milk suppliers and Riverford.co.uk.
Is this really true - that all milk in Britain is homogenised except this one kind? I've just checked my dairy's website and only one kind of milk is listed as homogenised among the many pasteurised and organic varieties of milk (skimmed, semi-skimmed and full fat) that they sell.
Homogenised milk is, perhaps, a more modern version of sterilised milk: produced to last for a long time?
Given what we know of animal husbandry in modern farming, consuming anything other than organic eggs and milk seems a false economy to me.
No, it isn't like sterilised milk. It is jetted at high pressure through a nozzle which breaks up the fat molecules so that the cream does not separate. There is NO known benefit to the consumer, and only a benefit to the seller - it makes the milk more 'attractive' because the cream does not rise to the top, which namby-pamby fat-o-phobes apparently find distasteful. They would probably find dirty potatoes and carrots distasteful, too. Ooops, I think my prejudices were showing there, apologies to all. Just MY feelings, you understand.
I started ordering from a well known dairy which delivers regularly - and I specifically asked if their milk was homogenised, and was told if I want homogenised, I had to order it specially. Then the first delivery arrived, ordinary milk, suspiciously without any cream on top. Checked the label. "Pasteurised, homogenised milk". Check the labels, and if they are NOT homogenised, I will order from them!
No, you don't have to apologise, I was a bit emphatic, I suppose because it is something I feel very strongly about. I suspect it's yet another example of Lincolnshire being forgotten! I will look into it, but so far the only one I can get around here is Duchy Originals from Waitrose - when they have it.
Ah. Do you find that even organic is so treated? It would seem to defeat the object of that particular exercise. But perhaps it isn't prohibited by regulations governing what can be classed as organic.
I have asked my milkman (who is online these days!) and will report back.
I can get unhomogenised jersey milk from Tesco. Also try and source a raw milk farmer as that is lovely stuff and full of probiotics and enzymes and will keep around a week in the fridge.
I am going to try that. I'm surrounded by farmers where I live and am very lucky to be able to buy fresh bison meat with no additives and veggies grown with no stuff in them etc. can't do it all the time due to costs but do when I can. Raw milk sounds interesting. Will google tonight. Thanks.
thanks fennel - I will let my daughter know - I've upset her finding out her organic milk is low in iodine - but brought her some seaweed back for her garden, to make amends
Raw milk - we always used to have it at home, the cream whipped up a treat!
but I am wary now since my brother (dairy farmer) wouldn't drink it himself nowadays - TB and all that..... a real shame.
I agree fat doesn't make you fat, the brain is made of fat
(unfortunately as I am currently fat my arguments aren't very convincing!) J
Hello there, thank you very much for answering. I don't like the taste of milk, the fat in it actually makes me gag, hence the skim milk. I sometimes just use water. I use the skim cos I thought it was giving me some nutrient that I may need, lol and durrrrrr.
I do powerlifting and used to do cardio but have cut that right back due to tiredness.
I'm trying, with great difficulty to fight my habits of an age to make myself feel better than I do. Broccoli and cabbage and stuff like that were on my plate 2 or 3 times a day, so now finding substitutes. It's a hard road for me, but I'm trying.
I will look into other seeds. I put linseeds in as I read they helped with the bowels and the oils were good for you. I will look for a different sort that hypo people can have. Thank you for your response.
Hemphearts will make you poo. They are also an energy bomb. They taste pretty good and a little goes a long way. Chia is good for fibre, calcium, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus.....omega 3..... keeps blood sugar level.
The thing about flax seed is they go rancid fast once ground up. And they then smell fishy. (Flax seed oil, for example, must be kept in the refrigerator in an opaque bottle even if the bottle has yet to be opened. It oxidizes extremely quickly and readily, which in my books, means it's not necessarily great stuff. But people consume all sorts of things these days that traditionally were not.)
You could add coconut milk to your smoothie.............. makes for a beautiful vibrant complexion.
I buy them whole and grind up every morning. Or I did, changing to the ones you mentioned at the weekend when I can get to the shop. Thank you for the tip on coconut milk. I buy the pure stuff with no additions so will add that. I had no idea at all that skim milk had stuff in it to make it white. That's a revelation. Thanks so much for your input.
I also do not like the taste and mouth feel of cows milk. And cream.
Have switched to goats milk (full fat) and much prefer it. Mind, I am also absolutely fine with cows butter - somehow it is distinctly different to cream and milk.
Have enjoyed the goat's cheese from time to time, is costly but I don't have a big appetite so very often a lot of "normal" items go in the bin because of going "off" before I finish it so that's my excuse for buying dearer item Didn't know about the ice cream - sounds yuuuuuuumy!!!!!!!! Main shop to morrow will have a seek (Sainsbury's?) Or do you know where it is definitely available?
Ooh, interesting gabkad - I use sea salt but my doc wants me to use iodised salt which seems like it may not be easy to find here in the UK - ? Can I infer from what you have said that salt is generally iodised here (aside from pickling salt)? Because I thought it was not.
bicycle, I live in Canada in the goitre belt. So most of the salt is iodized. From what I've learned, in the U.K. iodized salt needs to be looked for. I don't understand this because so many people these days don't drink milk (which is the best source of dietary iodine) and consequently the rate of iodine deficiency is rising.
We also don't have selenium in the soil so getting it means eating meat, eggs etc. That's the only reliable means because seeds like sunflower contain selenium but it depends on if the soil the plant grew contained it. Hit and miss. Same goes for brazil nuts that everyone seems to think are a good source of selenium. Yes, if the soil contains it. Brazil nuts are from all over the place these days so not a reliable source.
If you don't eat meat and don't eat dairy, then supplementing BOTH is important, not just one.
My neighbour down the hall is diabetic and takes T4. She and her husband both had puffy thyroids...................... they were using Kosher salt (no iodine). In their case, probably supplementing both selenium and iodine would have been a good idea. But anyway, they are now using iodized table salt. She is also taking her T4 at bedtime. Because of the diabetes (insulin) she didn't wait long enough in the morning before eating breakfast. So she was not absorbing the T4 properly. We got all subversive and added TSH, fT4 and fT3 to her blood test requisition and it turned out her blood levels were in the garbage can. Her endocrinologist didn't think test for these and was actually grateful we added them in.
Now she's doing SO much better. She's lost her gut and her face is different. She has energy.
Most UK salt is not iodised. Many UK supermarkets sell at least one iodised salt. I can't remember seeing iodised sea salt here - after all, most people who go for sea salt do so because it is what it is and don't want it mucked about with. It is available, at least mail order/online.
Some processed foods are made with iodised salt, especially German ones (and, maybe, Polish).
Clutter, flax seed was the food of starvation. When harvests failed, people ground up the flax seeds so at least they'd get something to eat. Same with chestnuts.
Clutter, thank you very much. Will google. Phew this stuff is hard to work through. I'm so glad I can ask on here for help as I'm utterly lost. Thanks.
Why only half a banana? Go the whole hog - so to speak - and eat the lot! Bananas are very good for you.
I agree with you about the eggs and bacon first thing in the morning! Ugh! I can't take food at all. I just want liquid. So I have a cup of lemon juice in warm water followed by a cup of cocoa with coconut sugar and hot water - can't take milk, myself.
But with food, as with everything else, we are all different and we have to find what suits us. Your smoothie is very healthy (apart from the skimmed milk! Go full-fat!!!) as long as you don't have bad reactions to any of the ingrédients. Enjoy!
Thank you very much indeed. I was worried about the whey protein. It is the pure stuff and use it as a quick way to get my protein upped. I just thought it was bad due to a few things I have read saying avoid dairy. I very much appreciate you taking the time. I will drop the linseeds in favour of chia seeds. If I can find them.
Northie, no need to drop the flax seeds if they aren't bothering you. Just try not taking them for a few weeks and see if you feel any better without them. If you don't, then there's no reason why you shouldn't start taking them again. Why not flax seed AND chia? lol
If you were lactose intolerent, you would know it. Otherwise, there's nothing wrong with milk. I know a lot of people say it's bad but if you'r thriving on it, once again, I see no reason why you should give it up.
Thank you again. I use the skim milk cos I don't like the taste of full fat. It makes me gag. I may though use water now I know there's stuff in the skim milk.
I was told titanium dioxide is relatively harmless in the big scheme of things, better than no milk really
(I have to force myself to drink milk - like any good medicine, only once a day mind) just tried having half a teaspoon of coconut oil in coffee - it's solid in UK - gag alert too...
I have started to use full fat milk, as the fat carries a lot of the vitamins. The latest news about fat is that it is not fattening and that saturated fat is good and vegetable oils are bad, so I use butter and coconut oil and home rendered lard, as well as olive oil since that is naturally extracted without hexane or heat and not bleached and deoderised as corn, sunflower or rapeseed oils are.
My breakfast is often kefir, which is fermented milk with a funny little thing that looks like cauliflower florets. You strain it out and re-use the florets and consume the yoghurt stuff that is produced and it is very nutritions and full of probiotics. I use half a banana, some berry like frozen blackcurrants, a scoop of whey protein or colostrum powder, a spoonful of powdered rose hips for vit C, powdered B12 and b vits complex, a splash of coconut water and blend it up. Anything goes and it is easy to get it down. I have made 'green powder' from some land cress, dried and blended, so will be using that too.
This morning we had fried wild trout from the market, but more often we have home made muesli made without grains or sugar and served with banana or grated/chopped apple. Just a lot of organic seeds, nuts, and dried fruits in moderation. Now and then we have a full English and love it, the bacon is from a local organic farm as are the eggs. Try and source your food from good places and you will have better nutrition. Don't eat farmed fish it is nasty and fed on sweepings from chicken sheds (grain, straw and shit all made into pellets, and salmon has the pink colour from petrochemicals as it will be grey otherwise ) Smoked cod/ haddock is nice, with bread and butter, and easy to prepare. Boiled eggs for hubby as I can't eat them due to allergy, nor do I eat the bread that's just for him as he refuses to give it up!!
Hi Fennel, that's great info. Bleuurrrrgh about the salmon though....I eat lots of salmon but I try to buy the wild stuff if I can afford it, but that is red or pink too so now wondering what they're eating.
smoked trout is just as yummy as salmon (hopefully no added colour) we have hot smoked freshly-caught mackerel (with oak sawdust in a bread tin) and made our own bacon, it is easy & yummy! (sugar is used in the process tho, or maple syrup) and daughter has chickens - sorted.
I really should look into Kefir, and get over my dislike of yoghurt. Has it got the probiotic strain Lactobacillus reuteri which produces B12 (I think) ?
A cereal decline in favour of eggs & bacon - surely not!
(UK) "Eggs are now being eaten 13.7% more often at breakfast than they were a year ago - they feature in about one in 13 breakfasts - partly because of reports that they help people feel full for longer
There has also been a 7.1% increase in bacon consumption at breakfast in the last six months"
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Losing too much weight!
advice please- protein shakes
help with info please re Levo and dairy fat like butter/ double cream ( not single cream though)
GLUTEN confusion, please de-mystify
The importance of tea
