#541 Thy-roids

There’s a new term looming on the horizon.
And it has to do with America’s proclivity for fads—most especially fads in food.
Ever since Captain Crunch added crunchberries, America has jumped on food bandwagons even as they careen to the cliff of doom., To the utter detriment of their health, that is.
So it is with salt. Yes, salt.
Today’s connoisseurs and gourmands have rushed to the seashore to gather the tidal bounty. Sea salt.
And they’ve put it in grinders to use at the table, they’ve mixed it with pepper and dried garlic, and they’ve basically come round full circle to adding salt back into heart-attack, high blood pressure conscious, low salt diets.
But they left something out. Iodine.
Iodine is an ingredient that’s been added to table salt in the U.S. for almost a century, primarily because certain areas of our country, like the Great Lakes and the Midwest, were low on other dietary sources of it.
Lack of iodine makes your thyroid gland under-produce certain key hormones. That makes your pituitary gland say, hey, we need more thyroid gland tissue to make up for the low output.
You know, if your workers aren’t producing enough, keep them and hire more workers.
The body doesn’t always have the intelligent design to be a good businessperson.
Anyhow, when your thyroid gland grows, your neck begins to swell up like a pelican trying to swallow a sturgeon, or one of those mating bullfrogs with the big balloon-like croaker under his chin.
And no turtleneck sweater in the world can hide the result.
You’d think the extra nodules of tissue would be called thy-roids, but no. The result is a condition known as goiter.
Round about the turn of the last century it was determined that adding a little iodine to table salt would cure this problem. And like most cured problems, people forgot is was one.
So now the specter of goiter is looming on the horizon once again, as food faddist gurus from Emeril to the Naked Chef are proclaiming the tastier benefits of pure sea salt.
I don’t know about you, but I think Emeril’s neck is looking a little thick.
Could he have that soon-to-be newest of maladies, gourmet goiter?
America ya gotta love it