Fans of vegan fish substitutes should ensure that what they eat does not contain excessive iodine. — dpa
If you’re into vegan fish alternatives with seaweed, you may well think you’re getting a healthy amount of iodine, as you normally would by eating fish.
After all, seaweed is one of the best food sources of the trace element – an essential component of your thyroid gland hormones.
Excess iodine can cause thyroid dysfunction, however, with a host of harmful symptoms.
These include a rapid heart rate, increased blood pressure, shakiness, diarrhoea and insomnia.
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With this in mind, German consumer protection advisers wanted to know the iodine content in vegan alternatives to fish/seafood with seaweed.
They selected six products on the market – including substitutes for tuna, smoked salmon and caviar – and sent them to a laboratory for testing.
This is what they found.
One product contained no appreciable amount of iodine, as it was under the detection minimum of 10mcg per 100g.
All of the others had appreciable amounts ranging from 29 to 226 microgrammes per 100g.
Three of them could be termed “iodine-rich” (more than 45mcg per 100g), and therefore, serve as a dietary source of the micronutrient.
The product with the highest iodine content – a 140g tin of a vegan tuna alternative – contained 316mcg of iodine.
The consumer protection advisors note that this amount exceeds the recommended daily intake.
By comparison, 140g of tinned tuna contains between 21 and 28 microgrammes of iodine.
Undoubtedly, not all consumers are aware that certain vegan substitutes have large amounts of iodine, they say, warning that ingesting high concentrations on a regular basis – e.g. by eating the aforementioned vegan tuna alternative daily – can disrupt normal thyroid function.
The recommended maximum daily intake of iodine is about 600mcg – from all sources together, such as iodised salt, fish, dietary supplements and seaweed products.
Although a product’s list of ingredients shows whether it contains seaweed, this says nothing about the iodine content, the consumer advisers point out.
This depends on the type of seaweed (such as kelp, nori, kombu or wakame), the amount used, and natural fluctuations.
They add that specifying iodine content is required only when manufacturers label products as “rich in iodine” or an “iodine source”, or the content exceeds 2,000mcg per 100g dry weight.
Neither was true of any of the products tested.
Nevertheless, consuming normal servings of vegan fish alternatives with seaweed – as in the case of the tuna substitute – can lead to unwitting ingestion of large amounts of iodine, the advisors warn.
To be on the safe side, they recommend that people with a thyroid condition query the manufacturer about such products’ iodine content before consumption.
As for everyone else, the best way to ensure a healthy iodine intake is to eat a balanced diet, in which vegan fish alternatives with seaweed can definitely play a role. – dpa
