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!

[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).

[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!

[Liz94]

When I was on the LID diet I bought a food scale and cut chicken breasts into 2.5 ounce pieces and also divided up (organic) ground beef and steak into serving sizes. I ate half of my daily allowance at lunch and half for dinner because I NEED protein and 5 ounces a day just isn't a lot. I also ate a lot of noodles with unsalted spaghetti sauce and smoothies made with frozen berries. Also, I lucked out in that there is a bakery near my house that specializes in breads for people with medical conditions.  It was expensive for one loaf but well worth the money to have it!  I also managed to discover many foods that I didn't know I liked such as sweet potatoes and regular potatoes with salsa.  I wish you luck, that diet does stink.  It's very healthy though and I lost 8 pounds in 14 days on it.

[shannon828]

I am on the diet now and even though it's my second time around I'm starving and counting the days until I am off this stupid thing.  I found a few things that saved me:

Fleischman's Unsalted Margarine (contains soy, but soy oil which is allowed)
When Pigs Fly Bread (they use non-iodized salt and no iodates in their breads)
Living Harvest Hemp Milk (available at Whole Foods or online- for use in coffee or over Granola, etc.)
Heniz No-Salt Ketchup (5 oz burger anyone?)
Walnut Acres Low Sodium Pasta Sauce (no salt)

The diet ***** and NONE of the recipes in the cookbook are appealing to me, so I can relate to your question.  If adhering to it wasn't as important as it is I would just cheat all day long, but since I know my health depends on it, I am pretty strict about it.

We actually made the Griddle Cakes recipe from the Thyca website yesterday and they weren't too bad.  My mom usually bakes me a loaf of bread, some cookies and/or muffins to get me through.  The other problem is since there is virtually no fat or protein on the diet I am exhausted all the time.  Luckily it's only for a short time, but I feel your pain.

Signed,
Starving and Exhausted

[CommMajor101]

My dad found a spaghetti sauce that fits our LID criteria, L.E. Roselli's. Haven't tried it yet, but we'll see  :)

[nissah46]

I know, I constantly thought about food.  I really missed my yogurt.  You can look forward to your first day off the diet and dream about what you will eat.
Trish