Health & Food

Is Your Diet Lacking Iodine?

At the moment I am laying out and reading one of the most hilarious books I’ve ever read;hilarious books

If you’re looking for a funny read, I suggest this one! It’s about a women who was thrown off a cruise ship by her greedy and quite idiotic husband. He meant for her to die, obviously, but she survived. The entire book is about her plot at getting back at her husband, and I’ll leave it at that. Read it!

I also wanted to share with you this article I recently read about certain populations (mainly vegans) who may not be getting enough iodine in their diets.

From the article:

According to the World Health Organization, the general recommended range of iodine concentrations per liter of urine is between 100 and 199 micrograms, and between 150 and 249 micrograms per liter in pregnant women.

Leung and her colleagues calculated an average iodine level of 147 micrograms in vegetarians and 79 in vegans – those who avoid not just meat but eggs and dairy products as well.

So, why is iodine so important? See the following from Thyroid.org

Iodine is an element that is needed for the production of thyroid hormone. The body does not make iodine, so it is an essential part of your diet. Iodine is found in various foods (see Table 1 below). If you do not have enough iodine in your body, you cannot make enough thyroid hormone. Thus, iodine deficiency can lead to enlargement of the thyroid (goiter – see Goiter brochure), hypothyroidism (see Hypothyroidism brochure) and to mental retardation in infants and children whose mothers were iodine deficient during pregnancy.

The article talks about how it’s super important for women of childbearing age, especially those who are vegan, to take an iodine supplement. It wasn’t mentioned in the article, but I tend to believe that many people who are vegan are also very health conscious, and therefore they may be restricting their intake of salt. Salt, which is sodium chloride, has been fortified with iodine for years now. With the latest research saying that we consume too much salt, I believe some people are restricting their intake too much. This is not to mention the fact that many health-conscious (and even not-so-health conscious) individuals are using sea salt instead of iodized salt. Most sea salt is not fortified with iodine, but iodized sea salt does exist, and I would definitely suggest this for vegans who think they aren’t getting enough iodine.Diet Lacking 1

To learn more about iodine and vegans diets, read this from VeganHealth.org.

QUESTION: Do you use sea salt or iodized table salt? I use sea salt sometimes, but most of the time I used iodized table salt.

QUESTION: Do you have any good book recommendations for me? I’ve heard a few great recommendations recently, but I love to read so the more I hear the better!

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Hi, my name is Rebecca Houston and I am a writer. I write about health, healthy food and daily meal plan for various websites.
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