Adventures in Low-Iodine Shopping

In preparation for my upcoming Radioactive Iodine (RAI) treatment, I am required to be on a low-iodine diet for the next 3 weeks.  As someone who has never had to be on such a restrictive diet before, this has been a very challenging task....but man, have I learned a LOT about the foods I eat.

At first, I was really grumpy about the fact that I wouldn't be able to eat most of the foods I love for so many days.  But by researching and learning more about why this diet is necessary, I have begun to realize that this is the one thing that I have complete control over during this war with those nasty little cancer cells.  The more aware I am of the foods I am eating, the better chance I will have at destroying the things that are trying to take over my body.  Watch out, you ugly little invaders.  This girl is on a mission!

The purpose of the RAI treatment is to ablate (or kill off) any remaining thyroid cells in my body, cancerous or not.  Something you may not know is that your thyroid cells are the only cells in your body that absorb iodine.  The pill that I will take on the day of my treatment will be full of iodine...but in a radioactive form.  The "poison" iodine will seek out and be absorbed into any thyroid cells it can find, which should destroy all of the cancer cells left.  

Here's why my diet is so important to this process.  If I am vigilant about staying away from any foods or ingredients that contain iodine, then I can "starve" all of those thyroid cells so that they will be quick to absorb the iodine from the dosage they give me the day of my treatment.  The tricky thing is that a BUNCH of the foods most of us eat everyday contain iodine in one form or another.  

For us, grocery shopping on a normal week with two young children can feel a little like a circus.  Add in the wait time to stop and carefully analyze every label on every package AND the travel time to multiple stores in search of specific foods, and it was definitely an exhausting adventure.  Luckily, the Butricks are not quitters.  I'm happy to report that we prevailed and conquered the low-iodine shopping list with only minor injuries and minimal tears.  Just kidding.  There were no injuries...this time.

With the exception of the creamer that sneaked its way into the picture, here are all the foods we found that I can eat for the next 3 weeks.  I actually think I can do this!