Low-Iodine Diet

This blog entry is all about the food I've been preparing and eating the last couple of days. Some of you may not care about this, but I wanted to create a blog post for anyone searching the net for vegetarian recipe ideas on the low-iodine diet prior to their radioactive iodine treatment. 

These days have been overtaken by cooking. I absolutely love to cook, so this was a fun adventure for me. And luckily, I'm not in school, working, or on a clinical rotation right now, and my son goes to daycare during the day, so I have a lot of time on my hands to make all sorts of new recipes. There are some things that I miss eating on this diet...like cheese and olives...oh...and eating out, but I'm surviving :-P . Amazing how many things have salt (and iodine) in them! But this diet basically eliminates all processed foods and a few non-processed foods as well like rhubarb (which I don't ever eat anyway), potato skins, and a few types of beans (kidney, lima, pinto, navy, and cowpeas). Also, since most canned beans have salt, they recommend making your own. For a full list of things I'm not allowed to eat, here's the document link: 
http://www.thyca.org/download/document/229/Cookbook1pgEng.pdf

It's not too bad if you cook most of your food at home and are already a pretty healthy eater like I am. If I were cooking and working or going to school or on rotation, I don't think this would be very easy to do. 

Here are the things I've been making (links provided if available since I pulled some things from the Ten Talents Vegetarian Cookbook - TTVCB):

*Note: Any salt called for in a recipe, I used Morton Non-Iodized Salt
*Another note: I already have to eat non-wheat products due to my wheat allergy, so I make all of my food gluten-free using Bob's Red Mill flours and buy gluten-free pasta. Tinkyada brand is my favorite and luckily, has no salt in their pastas.

• Homemade tomato sauce (for pasta): Found in the TTVCB
• Banana bread (http://cookieandkate.com/2015/healthy-banana-bread-recipe/ I subbed Bob's Red Mill GF baking flour since there are no dairy or eggs in his mixes and I used my homemade cashew milk instead of the milk or water listed here. I also used flax eggs instead of regular eggs.)
• Cashew milk - TTVCB
• Almond milk - TTVCB (store bought is a no-no since 99% of processed nut milks contain sea salt and/or carrageenan which is an extract of red seaweed)
• Vegetable broth (I have been saving my vegetable scraps for a few months now in a bag in the freezer and I put all the scraps in my crock pot, added enough water to cover the scraps,  added some non-iodized salt, a bay leaf, and half an onion, and cooked on high for 10 hours. In the morning, I strained the broth and dumped the veggies in my compost bin.)
• Quinoa Tabouleh - I used 2 bunches of parsley pulsed in food processor, 4 tomatoes diced, 1 green bell pepper diced, 3 cups cooked quinoa, juice of 2-3 limes, and salt to taste (this was my own creation and you can actually find a lot of really good recipes out there, but they call for other ingredients like mint and green onions, which I am not really a huge fan of in my tabouleh)
• White kidney beans cooked in pressure cooker (http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-cook-beans-in-a-stovetop-pressure-cooker-193867 for aromatics and  http://www.hippressurecooking.com/pressure-cooking-times/ for cooking times)
• Black beans cooked in pressure cooker (see above links)
• Lentil soup (http://cookieandkate.com/2015/vegan-lentil-soup-recipe/ This recipe calls for canned diced tomatoes. Originally I was going to use fresh tomatoes, but Sprouts actually had no salt added canned diced tomatoes, so I bought those instead and I used my homemade vegetable broth)

So what does my typical food day look like? *Note: This is how I eat the majority of the time, it's just a little more involved since I'm having to make my own pasta sauce, milk, and beans.

Breakfast:

• Oatmeal cooked with raisins and added a small amount of coconut oil, raw organic honey, cinnamon, nutmeg, and a handful of chopped walnuts and a splash of my almond milk

     or

• Protein smoothie: 1 scoop of RAW Protein and Greens powder, approx 1 1/2 cups of mixed fruit (I like strawberries, blueberries, mango, banana, peaches, etc), 1-1 1/2 cups of my homemade nut milk, 2 Tbsp ground flax seeds, 1 Tbsp chia seeds, ice (if not using frozen fruit), blend and add water to make it more smooth.

Snacks: 

• Sliced apple with unsalted almond or cashew butter 

     or 

• Banana with a handful of pecans, walnuts, almonds, or cashews

     or

• Air popped popcorn using my popcorn maker sprinkled with coconut oil, non-iodized salt, and nutritional yeast

Lunch: 

• Tinkyada pasta with my homemade sauce sprinkled with nutritional yeast and a side salad consisting of spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, mini sweet bell peppers, drizzled with olive oil, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, and lime juice

     or

• A bowl of my quinoa tabouleh

     or

• Lentil soup

Dinner:

• Cooked rice topped with the pressure cooked beans (I like to add some of the bean juice as well), steamed green beans, and fresh chopped tomatoes

     or

• Sweet potato (no skin), egg whites or beans, and steamed broccoli or any steamed vegetable (peas, artichoke, asparagus, green beans, etc)

     or

• Any of the items listed for lunch