DEAR THYROID^TM

Meatless Monday is a nationwide (American) initiative brought to us by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, which encourages consumers to make meat-free choices each Monday, in order to lessen our incidences of meat-related disease.  The USDA’s recommended daily allowance (RDA) of animal protein for people aged 9 – 70 years old is only between 30 and 60 grams a day.  This is in stark contrast to what most Americans eat, as it is a trend in our country to eat animal products and meat at every meal, making our intake about 50% greater than it should be.  In other words, most people are over-consuming animal products, and this has been linked to an array of diseases.

Personally, I think eating meat has been vilified, and actually, the real culprit is not the meat itself, but the kind of meat.  That is, factory-farmed meat versus pastured organic meat.  Factory farmed meat is a toxic and processed food.  Eating a food that has been given antibiotics, fed unnatural diets of genetically-modified foods (many of which happen to be goitrogenic, or contain fluoride), confined in tiny dark boxes, covered in their own feces which sometimes burns through their feathers or skin (Google “hock burn“), mixed with chemicals and disinfectants upon processing, injected with saline solutions and dyes or carbon monoxide to make the meat look more appealing on the grocery store shelf (NY Times), develop carcinogenic properties when grilled at high temperatures, etc. etc. etc is simply not natural and not healthy.  We’ve got to choose organic and pastured meat whenever possible.  Because this can be expensive, initiatives like Meatless Monday are a healthy alternative to incorporate meat-free, high quality (and often, less expensive) foods into our diet.  Just don’t be fooled into replacing meat with processed vegetarian “analogues”.  Grains, beans, legumes, vegetables, nuts and seeds, all contain tons of protein and even essential amino and fatty acids, so you can definitely reach your daily quotient, and they don’t have to be heavy on the carbs or soy.  (Hemp seeds are my favorite.)

Another initiative that’s interesting to note is “Wheatless Wednesday“.  This originated during World War I, when America’s Food and Drug Administration introduced the term as a means of voluntary food rationing.  The idea is still valuable for us today, as more and more people are realizing they have a gluten intolerance, and that many modern diseases are basic intolerance in the gut.  Especially for those with endocrine disease, autoimmune disease, and cancer, cutting gluten and wheat can literally be a life or death situation.  Join in on Facebook with the Wheatless Wednesday group I started.

And all this talk about healthy initiatives got me thinking that the international thyroid community should start our own initiative.  I propose a Soy-less Sunday (join the group!) because one of the most important choices we can make for our endocrine health (next to eating whole, organic foods) is reducing our goitrogen intake.  Soy is the one goitrogen we are constantly inundated with because it is in nearly every processed food!  It is most difficult to avoid, unless we are eating straight-from-the-ground foods.  So, beginning today, I’d like to initiate the very first Soy-less Sunday for the international thyroid community.  This means we’ll need to eat as fresh and whole as possible, or, if we do eat processed foods (even “healthy” processed foods), read labels and look for soy derivatives.  Who’s in?

Until Next Week,
Love Always,
Liz

Resources:

1. How to calculate your daily protein needs
2. Wheatless Wednesday archives
3. Wheatless Wednesday: 6 Alternatives to 87,000 Slices of Bread
4. Eat Drink

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Tags: carcinogenic properties when cooking meat, Dear Thyroid, factory farmed meat, how to cook meat, How To Kick Your Thyroid's Ass, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Liz Schau nutrition columnist, Meatless Monday's, Soy-less Sundays, studies of meat eaters, thyroid nutrition column, Wheatless Wednesdays

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