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Too much iodine

In the body: Too much iodine can upset the thyroid, making it overactive or underactive.

The one rated food, Cod, baked, needs no cap on how often you eat it: about 650 g, eaten alone, reaches the daily limit.

Too much of a nutrient. For a food measured against it: the grams that reach the upper intake level, eaten every day.

All hazards

The limit

  • The agency’s figure1,100 µg/day
  • Basisupper intake level (UL): the most to take in every day
    upper intake level (UL)
  • Average adult intake Average adult iodine intake from the rest of the diet is not recorded yet.
  • Applies toadults 19 y and over, all sources (IOM 2001, carried by Health Canada); EFSA 600 µg/day and Japan (MHLW) 3,000 µg/day differ
  • Source Health Canada, dietary reference intakes

Reviewed foods that carry it

1 reviewed food carries it, 1 of them rated by dose.

Grams to the limit

Grams of each food that reach the limit in its window, for a 70 kg adult. Fewest first: those are the foods to watch.

  1. Cod, baked

    Nothing to watch: under the limit for a 100 g serving

    650g
    reaches the limit in a day
    Counted from zero: this food eaten alone.
    169.6 µg per 100 g serving

    US FDA Total Diet Study (2018–2020) · grade A

    How it’s rated

    No cap: the tolerable upper intake level for iodine is 1,100 µg/day for adults 19-50 and in pregnancy (Health Canada, table of 2025-11-19). On the FDA mean of 1.696 µg/g for baked cod (27 composites, all detected), about 649 g a day eaten alone would reach it, and one serving is 15% of the limit. Iodine is also a nutrient: a serving carries 170 µg against an adult recommended intake of 150 µg.

    Intake: 100 g cooked serving (HC TRA I.3) · Level in the food: 1,696 ppb (mean (27 composites, all detected; standard deviation 631, min 880, max 3300 ppb), n = 27)

    Measured on: US FDA TDS FY2018-2020, TDS food 387 'Cod, baked', reporting limit 25 ppb

Sources