Oysters and Leftover Risotto April 9, 2008

I was lazy tonight and didn’t feel like cooking. Seth is still in France — so I made a super easy supper just for me: oysters on the half shell with leftover asparagus and pancetta risotto.

I went to Whole Foods today to pick up some things. My dentist told me he thinks I have heavy metal toxicity. He wants me to drink beet kvass and freshly juiced vegetables every day. Freshly squeezed veggies and beet kvass help to chelate (detox) heavy metals and toxins.

So I bought beets and celery and carrots. I also got some iodine to tide me over until I get my Iodoral in the mail (going to order it tomorrow).

I’ve been reading more about iodine and thyroid function and it’s really interesting. Apparently one of the functions of iodine is to chelate heavy metals. So if you have a deficiency of iodine, the heavy metals will accumulate in your body. Which explains why I have chronic fatigue and tingling/numbness in my fingers and hands.

I know, scary! I actually think it’s a good thing that I stopped breast feeding. When you have an iodine deficiency, heavy metals accumulate in the breast — which makes for very toxic breast milk!

It all makes sense. Pregnancy and breast feeding massively deplete the body of iodine. So I have two issues now — heavy metal toxicity and hypothyroidism. Both caused by iodine deficiency.

So anyway, I bought some fish to make fish stock. Seeing how I need more iodine. And Kate probably does too. Not to mention Seth. So I think I’m going to try to make fish stock from now on (instead of chicken or beef stock). You need the fish heads, since they have the thyroid, which is full of iodine. (In many traditional cultures, they feed pregnant and nursing women fish stock made with fish heads.)

They had some nice wild-caught Thai snapper at Whole Fooods. They were kind enough to fillet them for me — and they wrapped up the fish heads and the bones separately so I can make my stock.

I also bought some oysters (more iodine). They will shuck them for you at Whole Foods — which makes it the easiest thing to serve. You literally just put it out on the table. I was too lazy to make Mignonette sauce, so I just poured a tiny bit of red wine vinegar onto the oysters.

The leftover asparagus and pancetta risotto (which we made when my family was in town) took 5 minutes to heat up in a saucepan. Mmmm — why is it that risotto always tastes better the next day?

Paired with a nice (organic) sauvignon blanc.

I think I’m going to have a little raw milk cheddar on rice crackers to cap the meal off.