Page 49 - Summer2009

by noting that “the idea that Japanese people con- DW OHDVW SHUFHQW ZDWHU PJ SHU GD\ LV D VLJQL¿FDQW RYHUHVWLPDWH
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arisen from a misinterpretation of a 1967 paper. among Japanese people, the mean dietary intake (estimated from urinary
In that paper, the average intake of seaweed in LRGLQH H[FUHWLRQ ZDV LQ WKH UDQJH RI WR PFJ SHU GD\ ZKLFK LV DW
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seaweed was said to contain 0.3 percent iodine. Regarding the other argument in support of a high iodine requirement,
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consumed per day was expressed as wet weight, that loading the thyroid gland or other tissues with all the iodine they can
ZKHUHDV WKH SHUFHQW LRGLQH ¿JXUH ZDV EDVHG hold is necessarily a good thing. . . Our thyroid glands have developed a
on dry weight. Since many vegetables contain powerful mechanism to concentrate iodine, and some thyroid glands (or

IODINE CONTENT OF FOODS

SOURCE IODINE CONTENT IODINE CONTENT
mcg/100 g per typical serving

Dried Kelp 62,400 3120 2
Iodized Salt 7,600 1520 3
Saltwater fish 330 330
1
Blackstrap Molasses 158 24
Catfish 118 118
Beans, dried 115 58
Seafoods 66 66
Spinach 56 28
Vegetables 30 15
Milk and Milk Products 14 14
Eggs 4 13 13

Seal Meat 3 3
Seal Blubber 12 12
Seal Kidney 5 5
Seal Liver 10 10
Whale Meat 1 1
Whale Blubber 15 8
Cod Flesh 74 74
Cod Liver 32 32
Wild Fowl 5 5
Caribou 5 0.4 0.4

Oysters 46 46
Mussels 107 107
Lobster Hepatopancreas 6 2,250 450

Uniodized sea salt 7 50 3 3
1. Haddock, whiting, herring
2. Assumed serving of 5 g dried kelp (Nutrition in Japan, 1964. Nutrition Section, Bureau of Public Health, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Tokyo, Japan,
March 1965).
3. Daily intake if 5 g iodized salt consumed.
4. These 11 values from Ensminger AH and others. The Concise Encyclopedia of Foods and Nutrition. CRC Press, 1995, p 587.
5. These 10 values from Anderson S and others. Iodine Content of Traditional Greenlandic Food Items and Tap Water in East and West Greenland.
International Journal of Circumpolar Health 2002 61:332-340.
6. These 3 values from Dermelj M and others. Iodine in different food articles and standard reference materials. Fresenius’ Journal of Analytical Chemistry
1990 338:559-561.
7. Aquaron R. Iodine content of non iodized salts and iodized salts obtained from teh retail markets worldwide. http://www.webiodine.com/dl/engl/
pdf/lit/4.1.14.pdf.

SUMMER 2009 Wise Traditions 47