Low Iodine Diet Help - Please!

[CommMajor101]

Hello everyone,
I am having a very difficult time finding appetizing foods that have non iodized salt or stick to other rules within the diet. Has anyone been on this diet and find some really good foods that stick to the rules? I don't have a whole lot of time every day to cook, so I need something that's relativity easy.  Thanks in advance!

[Cloulou]

Oh the Diet, yuk. I am about to start for the 3rd time. You can have salt, you just need to use Kosher salt, no sea salt or table salt but kosher is fine. Yes the prep time is a pain so my suggestion is when you have a day off, cook cook cook if you have time and then portion and freeze or cook parts and freeze so you can put things together. Making bread is a giant pain in the neck and but if you use the a basic white bread recipe with salt and olive oil and let the dough do the work for you. Use bread flour it has a higher gluten content so you don't have to work it so much. I spend all of 10 minutes on bread and I take out lots of work frustration on it & it smells wonderful while it's baking next to roasted veggies or granola. You can check local bakeries to see what they use, you may be able to buy bread without conditioners. I roast alot of stuff, I will put a whole chicken in the oven with salt, pepper, olive oil, lemon, fresh rosemary and thyme, and next to it I roast a whole head of cauliflower in olive oil, salt & pepper. After dinner strip the chicken down and make gravy with the drippings for chicken and biscuits, (there's a biscuit recipe in the cookbook) anyway, just some ideas. When I have time to cook, I cook truckloads so I can use it for more than one thing, but you are right, it is a pain in the neck. My daughter listens to me whine every time I have to go on the diet and she thinks I am being ridiculous but she is a culinary student. Don't get me wrong I love to cook when I have time and when I WANT TO not when I HAVE TO.  The granola in the cookbook is pretty good too, I use nuts only and no fruit and I bake it cupcake tins so they are portable, if my salivary glands were working they would be great but I just end up with a blob stuck on the side of my face that I can't swallow and can't get out without a shovel!! haha. Anyway my answer to most of the diet dilemna was to roast everything in site, even grape tomatoes and then throw them into pasta with lemon and olive oil. I make my own salad dressing anyway with oil and vinegar or lemon & dijon mustard, salt & pepper. If you look in the kosher foods part of your market you may find some prepared foods that you can use made with kosher salt. If it's kosher it's made with kosher salt, so that can be some help. Hang in there it will be over soon, the first thing I usually want after the diet is something dairy, cheese, ice cream, anything as long as it is dairy, that is my toughest part and coffee without creamer and I use soy creamer and I can't even use that!!! But this too shall pass. All the best. I wish you a nice big pizza dripping with cheese when it is all over!

[CommMajor101]

Thank you all so much for your helpful bits of info. I'm glad I'm not the only junk food junkie dyyyyyyyying for a pizza right now (it'll be the first thing I eat since the first day I can eat real food is super bowl sunday - hehe). If you like sweets, I've found that gummy bears stick to the rules. And the fajitas recipe in the cookbook is super yummy.

Liz - you mentioned that you ate half your daily allowance of meat at lunch and the rest at dinner. Is there an allowance of meat? I know they say like no more than 4 servings a day, but I was thinking they meant no more than 4 meals a day consisting of meat. (shrug).

[Liz94]

I was told only 5 ounces of organic meat per day.  I think I may have cheated on that aspect and had 6 because I was so freakin hungry.

[CommMajor101]

Huh, I didn't receive any heads up like that from my doctor. Was he the one who told you to limit it or was it from the cookbook?

[Liz94]

It was on the handout from the doctor.

[fragrance850]

Hi, all.

I don't know if Hashimoto's hypothyroidism should have a low iodine diet or not? I have too many seafoods as well as iodized salt.

Thank you.