Iodine

I heard on a Radio New Zealand podcast that it has been discovered that New Zealanders have very low iodine intakes, and this can cause health problem. There was a discussion of ways to combat this, and it seems that the government's approach is to pass a regulation that iodine must be added to all bread.

I guess this is a good idea, in that most people eat bread, but it surprised me that at no point in the interview did they mention one of the best dietary sources of iodine: kombu. I looked it up, wondering whether I had been given bad information and in fact kombu isn't such a great source, but I was right. According to this vegan society website, 15g of dried kombu or kelp in a convenient container in the kitchen provides one year's supply for one person.

I guess the problem would be getting people to use kombu, since it is not a part of the usual NZ diet. But kombu is easy. You can add a little to soup stock, and it tastes great. You don't need to eat the kombu, just use the kombu stock.

But one of the problems with iodine, I discovered when I searched the web, is that too much is as much of a problem as too little. I guess that means that if the government adds iodine to bread, they will not want people consuming kombu as well.

But my favourite sentence on the vegan society website was this one:

The low iodine levels in many plant foods reflects the low iodine levels in the UK soil, due in part to the recent ice-age.

Funny how the meaning of a word can change so much according to its context. For an exciting moment I thought the UK had had an ice age just last week and I hadn't heard about it.

How would an ice age affect iodine levels in plants, anyway?