My friend (Hi Susie!) has a fabulous little shop in Kitchener (Belmont Village - go check it out K-W peeps!)called All Things Tea. I love tea and I love the tea from her shop! Well, Susie has just ventured into a world that I have quickly fallen in love with ---> SPICES!!! And she has just started a blog - her very first post is about my absolute favorite thing - VANILLA! I love how vanilla smells, I love how vanilla tastes, I love how vanilla looks (well, when the seeds are in something, because the actual bean isn't all that sexy - although seeing a vanilla bean makes me happy because I know great things can be done with it!)
Check out her store's blog here: ALL THINGS TEA
ENJOY!
p.s. for non-K-W peeps Susie is planning on opening an online store! EEEK! Trust me I will let you know when that happens!
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Iodine
I was recently honoured with a special baking request that led me to do a little research on Iodine and what it is and why we need it and where can we find it naturally. Back in the day (during The Great Depression) people were NOT getting enough iodine in their diets resulting in an epidemic of iodine deficiency. "So what?" you may be asking - Iodine deficiency is pretty serious my friends! A lack of iodine causes things like enlarged thyroid (goiter), hypothyroidism, and brain damage! It can also cause abnormalities in growth and development. (I am not making this up - LIVESTRONG has a great info page on this!!!)
In an attempt to stem this serious issue governments had the salt manufacturers add Iodine to their product and that is the reason we have iodized table salt today - even though we don't really need it anymore! We are pretty fortunate to have many foods available now that have naturally occurring iodine in them so we can meet our daily requirements (about 150 micrograms for the general adult population). These foods include:
Sea Salt
Stuff that comes from the sea (fish, seafood, sea veggies)
Dairy (all of it! I found this very interesting!)
Prepared meats (and some of the stuff that comes from the butcher case at grocery stores is 'seasoned' aka prepared - I was most disappointed to see that the PC Blue Label Skinless Boneless Chicken Breasts in my local shop have chicken and 'seasoning' even though they don't look seasoned and don't taste seasoned - all this means to me is they plopped some 'stuff' on my chicken that I don't want there - makes me sad but reminds me to READ LABELS ON EVERYTHING! Preferably before I buy it!)
Soy (which is in pretty much every processed thing on the planet)
Egg yolks
Frozen peas
Potatoes
This means that we no longer need iodized table salt - like not at all.
Again, you may be asking yourself "So what?" - well, lemme tell ya: too much of a good thing = a bad thing. When you over iodize yourself you can cause hypothyroidism (which ironically can be caused by iodine deficiency!) and autoimmune thyroiditis (I don't know what that is, but it doesn't sound fun!)
It's also important not to confuse 'salt' with 'iodine'. As you can see from the list above, something may have no sodium in it but still be rich in iodine.
Your choice is this: load up your system with iodine from natural sources, or load it up with iodine from processed food. My research found(and again, I am not a doctor, nutritionist, dietitian, or scientist)that if your food came from a FACTORY it had plenty of iodine - more than enough - if you generally eat foods from FARMS you should be getting just enough in your diet!
Another argument for FARMS not FACTORIES :)
In an attempt to stem this serious issue governments had the salt manufacturers add Iodine to their product and that is the reason we have iodized table salt today - even though we don't really need it anymore! We are pretty fortunate to have many foods available now that have naturally occurring iodine in them so we can meet our daily requirements (about 150 micrograms for the general adult population). These foods include:
Sea Salt
Stuff that comes from the sea (fish, seafood, sea veggies)
Dairy (all of it! I found this very interesting!)
Prepared meats (and some of the stuff that comes from the butcher case at grocery stores is 'seasoned' aka prepared - I was most disappointed to see that the PC Blue Label Skinless Boneless Chicken Breasts in my local shop have chicken and 'seasoning' even though they don't look seasoned and don't taste seasoned - all this means to me is they plopped some 'stuff' on my chicken that I don't want there - makes me sad but reminds me to READ LABELS ON EVERYTHING! Preferably before I buy it!)
Soy (which is in pretty much every processed thing on the planet)
Egg yolks
Frozen peas
Potatoes
This means that we no longer need iodized table salt - like not at all.
Again, you may be asking yourself "So what?" - well, lemme tell ya: too much of a good thing = a bad thing. When you over iodize yourself you can cause hypothyroidism (which ironically can be caused by iodine deficiency!) and autoimmune thyroiditis (I don't know what that is, but it doesn't sound fun!)
It's also important not to confuse 'salt' with 'iodine'. As you can see from the list above, something may have no sodium in it but still be rich in iodine.
Your choice is this: load up your system with iodine from natural sources, or load it up with iodine from processed food. My research found(and again, I am not a doctor, nutritionist, dietitian, or scientist)that if your food came from a FACTORY it had plenty of iodine - more than enough - if you generally eat foods from FARMS you should be getting just enough in your diet!
Another argument for FARMS not FACTORIES :)
It's a Revolution!!
A lot of us are now conscious of the crap they put in our food - there are more options out there for us, and we're not all so willing to believe the 'healthy' labels they put on food anymore.
We're waging our personal battles against things like sugar, chemical laden food, eating out at not so great places (McDonald's I am talking about you!), and healthier packaging (BPA FREE PLEASE!!!) and we are starting to take to the internets to share ideas, recipes, and record our journey - the most important part of this whole revolution is DIALOGUE and information you can trust (i.e. no one is getting paid to advertise this junk). I occasionally post links to great sites that I find have great information - and I am always on the lookout for these so please feel free to share - and here is the most recent addition to my awesome site collection:
Less Sugar Naturally
It's a blog type site from a courageous woman who has decided to breakup with sugar!I love her writing style (her first entry is quite funny!) She has some great posts about her journey so far with tons of suggestions and tips and links to recipes, product reviews, and she even has sections on how to save money (woot woot)! Check it out and enjoy!!!!
We're waging our personal battles against things like sugar, chemical laden food, eating out at not so great places (McDonald's I am talking about you!), and healthier packaging (BPA FREE PLEASE!!!) and we are starting to take to the internets to share ideas, recipes, and record our journey - the most important part of this whole revolution is DIALOGUE and information you can trust (i.e. no one is getting paid to advertise this junk). I occasionally post links to great sites that I find have great information - and I am always on the lookout for these so please feel free to share - and here is the most recent addition to my awesome site collection:
Less Sugar Naturally
It's a blog type site from a courageous woman who has decided to breakup with sugar!I love her writing style (her first entry is quite funny!) She has some great posts about her journey so far with tons of suggestions and tips and links to recipes, product reviews, and she even has sections on how to save money (woot woot)! Check it out and enjoy!!!!
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