Iodine in Food

[xelatropwen]

Hey guys, I've been trying to cut out gluten, soy and dairy and up protein and fibre, I eat a lot of prawns, tuna and eggs, but I've just seen that iodine could be bad for thyroid issues - are these things people add to the 'avoid' list? I'd have to totally rehaul my diet again!

[SeasideSusie Remembering]

Naturally occurring iodine in food is generally OK, so milk, other dairy products, white fish, these all have more than prawns, tuna and eggs. It's supplementing with iodine that can be a problem.

Adult requirement of iodine is 150mcg daily, you can see how to achieve that from the chart here

bda.uk.com/foodfacts/Iodine...

Unless you had big portions of cod and haddock every day, you'd be hard pushed to overdose on iodine in diet.

That list is due to be updated in May this year. From what I understand, there is now little difference in the iodine content of non-organic and organic milk, and the iodine content of white fish is now lower than it used to be, possibly because much of it is farmed rather than caught at sea.

[xelatropwen in reply to SeasideSusie]

Thank you! Good to know! Sounds like cod wouldn't be great for me as I'll get a lot of iodine in other things, I'll start tracking for a week to get a sense of this.

[SeasideSusie Remembering in reply to xelatropwen]

I really wouldn't take the amount of iodine in cod and haddock in the BDA's table as accurate. That article is from 2016. This article from 2018 lists cod as having

3 ounces (85 grams) of cod has approximately 63–99 mcg, or 42–66% of the daily recommended amount (6, 10).

healthline.com/nutrition/io...

So even twice the amount (170g) of cod would give less than the amount of iodine for 120g cod in the BDA list. I believe this is because so much fish is now farmed so wouldn't have the amount of iodine that a fish swimming in the open sea would have - it's not always easy to get line caught fish, or fish caught by trawler nets.

[xelatropwen in reply to SeasideSusie]

Thank you Susie!