And so began the search for information about thyroid cancer. I culled through many websites and much information since the second week in June. First I had to separate the personal horror on the web from the facts. Statistically my odds are good. The cure rate for the type of cancer I had is like in the way upper 90's. The recurrence is high and that rate is scary and it can happen decades later. I will be going for screenings for the rest of my life. Which brings me to the LOW IODINE DIET. The information out there about the diet is so confusing!!! What can I eat, what do I have to avoid.
After surgery the treatment for thyroid cancer is a dose of Radioactive Iodine (RAI). The RAI should kill all the remaining thyroid cells and thyroid cancer cells (it's called an ablation). Thyroid cells suck up iodine and you don't want non-radioactive iodine competing with the radioactive iodine for that precious spot in the thyroid/thyroid cancer cells, therefore for two weeks before the ablation and for a few days afterward, there is the Low Iodine Diet. From the way people make the diet out to be-even the doctor doing my ablation-you would think that I was going to have to eat cardboard and drink stagnant, eutriphied water for two and a half weeks.
I am real good at dieting. I have been better, but this is for 2 weeks and my life depends on it. To all those people out there who complain about the diet. I say to you-Suck it up so your thyroid cells can.
I can't have any products from the sea, no dairy, iodized salt, packaged commercial baked goods, soy products, some kinds of beans, no dark leafy green vegetables, no foods containing added salt (you don't know if it's iodized), no cured meats, and a few other things. Also you can only have 4 servings of grains and 6-8 servings of protein a day. Hey no problem!
Thanks to my handy dandy internet search engine, I found free low iodine cookbooks with a combined total of about 500 pages of recipes.
http://www.thyca.org/download/document/231/Cookbook.pdf
http://www.thyroidcancercanada.org/userfiles/files/LID_recipes_Mar_14_2012.pdf
Also I have tweaked a few other recipes to make them low iodine and diet friendly. I don't know why the major concentration of any diet lately is recipes for snacks, cakes, cookies and treats. I want food, I don't want to waste my calories on empty ones. It took two years to lose 75 pounds and for the past 5 years I've kept 70 of them off!
So for the next few weeks I am dedicating my blog to my Low Iodine Culinary Adventure.
First and most important to me was coffee and diet soda, in that order. I found that I can have Rich's Non-Dairy Creamer and Original Coffee Mate in moderation. Diet soda was okay also! Whew!!!!! An easy hurdle.
Off to the Kosher Experience at Shoprite in Lakewood, because one thing you can be certain of, if it's Glatt Kosher and it says Dairy Free, it absolutely is. I got the coffee creamer and the my salt free, dairy free, soy free, carrageenan margarine there.
Next was no salt added chicken broth, because I didn't feel like making my own from scratch. I only found one brand that didn't have added soy and god knows what other unappetizing shit you wouldn't expect in chicken broth, Pacific.
Much to my surprise, already in my pantry was Mikes Sugar Free Buffalo Wing Sauce! A BBQ miracle sauce. It is as good on pork as it is on chicken breast...
My couple of practice days have left me wondering about lunch. There was really nothing for me to eat, and I didn't relish (hahah!) the idea of alternating between egg white omelets and chicken breast. When we lived in Brooklyn, I was around the corner from the health food store. Here in Whiting, NJ, I have to drive about 14 miles to the only Health Food store in Tom's River. I spent about 40 minutes reading labels. I found
a few good things. Salt free, soy free soup! Woo-hoo. Salt free curry powder! Hemp milk for my morning oatmeal. Hemp milk will be an new experience. I found some high fiber cereal cold cereal at the health food store also, so I can have something else besides shredded wheat.
At Stop and Shop, they had no salt added rice cakes and salt free peanut butter. I was also able to get Heinz salt free ketchup and Muir Glen no salt added diced tomatoes.
This diet suddenly became "doable".
Today I tweaked a recipe for chocolate zucchini bread from Marlene Koch's website. http://www.marlenekoch.com/zucchini-recipes-chocolate-zucchini-bread-and-oven-fried-zucchini-rounds/
It's the second recipe on the page, I used 3 egg whites instead of 1 whole egg and one egg white, a minor change. I put a little peanut butter on a slice of chocolate bread. OMG!!!! was it good.
A lot of people would be at a loss if they were told that the can't have commercial bread products, not me...I have been baking bread since I was 9 years old. Got some yeast and made some milk and egg free bread. It's artisanal bread now, but before that it was just plain old peasant bread.
I have been busy reading labels on fresh meat. Many chicken products have "natural seasonings" added. I found that Perdue ground chicken, just said rosemary...into the cart and then the skillet. For dinner tonight we had Ground Chicken Kofta Kebobs no tweaking necessary, and Zucchini with the no salt added diced tomatoes.
Stay tuned for tomorrow's meals.
I have chicken defrosted and fresh apricots...
Lunch will be left of zucchini with pasta
Breakfast is the big hemp milk experiment...will it or won't it go in the garbage!
No more practice runs, tomorrow is the real deal!
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| Mommy!!!! American Oyster Catcher with chick. Too Cute for Words |
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