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Thyme For Literary Healing: Thyroid Friendly Foods And How We Feel About Them
Food = passion = love = desire = crazy ass relationships = dysfunction = health = whatever you want it to. Regardless of your relationship with food prior to acquiring thyroid disease or thyroid cancer, what we want to talk about today is how your relationship with food has changed. Let’s share thyroid friendly recipes and talk about our nutrition programs. Let’s swap recipes. Let’s learn about how we’ve taken former foods we loved and made them into thyroid friendly gems.
Here are a few questions to get us started:
- Post disease, what was your favorite food on the planet?
- Have you changed your diet post diagnosis?
- Since changing your diet, what changes have you noticed with respect to symptoms and overall wellness?
- Do you have a favorite recipe that’s thyroid friendly?
- If you haven’t changed your diet, how do you feel? Have you noticed any different in symptoms and overall wellness?
- What role has nutrition played in your life – full stop?
Ready? Set. Write.
Tags: comfort food for thyroid patients, learning about thyroid friendly diets, recipe swaps, reinventing recipes for thyroid patients, Thyme for literary healing, thyroid friendly nutrition, thyroid friendly recipes, thyroid health, thyroid nutrition, thyroid nutritional changes
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4 Responses to “Thyme For Literary Healing: Thyroid Friendly Foods And How We Feel About Them”
Leave a Reply to Linny
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love this one!
1. Post disease, what was your favorite food on the planet?
Artichoke hearts. I could live on them. Sadly, I haven’t been able to find out if they are ok to eat now that I have Graves Disease.
2. Have you changed your diet post diagnosis?
I am trying my best to stay away from caffeine and salt. There are mixed messages about salt/iodized salt/sea salt. My regular doc said just stay away from it for now, and generally if I am “craving it” I shouldn’t have it. I make everything at home from scratch, so checking food labels is a pretty simple way. I also keep a food journal. Before the Graves Disease symptoms started, I had taken off a lot of weight, then a bunch more dropped because of the disease. Now it is leveling off and I want it to stay off. I am currently trying to create a list of foods that are good for Graves Disease, Adrenal Fatigue and my slightly elevated blood pressure. It is confusing, but I am chugging away at it.
3. Since changing your diet, what changes have you noticed with respect to symptoms and overall wellness?
In general, if I eat simple whole foods, without additives and preservatives, I feel great. It might be a mental thing, but I feel weighed down and groggy when I eat food I haven’t prepared myself. Always wondering what is in it exactly and looking up names on the ingredient list.
4. Do you have a favorite recipe that’s thyroid friendly?
Homemade chicken soup. I make homemade noodles and leave on the “side” for the kids to add. Just nice rich stock and lots of whatever veggies that are in season. Have been adding wild rice lately because it is on my list of foods that are good for Graves Disease and it adds a nice earthy touch. Yes, it is kind of hot for soup, but it has that “healing effect” so I still do it.
5. If you haven’t changed your diet, how do you feel? Have you noticed any different in symptoms and overall wellness?
Well I have, but I notice definate changes if I falter and eat junk, stress eat or think I can have caffeine. Lets just say I pay for it the following day.
6. What role has nutrition played in your life – full stop?
Since my son was labeled with every “bad boy” label when he was in school, we have always tried to stay away from additives and preservatives. I love to cook and try to make things up ahead and freeze so the kids/teens have their own “frozen foods” to choose from.
1. Post disease, what was your favorite food on the planet? Corn chips and corn tortillas
2. Have you changed your diet post diagnosis? Yes! At first I went gluten free and all seemed well for a while and then I got worse and found out that I have insulin resistance so, I went completely grain free(it’s been about a year now). I also minimally processed foods, organic and free range meats, eggs. Cut back sugar intake bigtime! You could call me a perimeter shopper…
3. Since changing your diet, what changes have you noticed with respect to symptoms and overall wellness? I am so much better on a grain free diet. Most of the time calmer and I am not so fuzzy. I had(until I got pregnant) lost 2o lbs in three months. I also have not gained as much weight w/this preg as I did in my first.
4. Do you have a favorite recipe that’s thyroid friendly? Since I am grain free I like to experiment w/coconut and almond flours…
5. If you haven’t changed your diet, how do you feel? Have you noticed any different in symptoms and overall wellness?
6. What role has nutrition played in your life – full stop? Well, I wish I knew about food and it’s roll in how we feel earlier on. Since I am only 28 I do feel ahead of the game. I am really against all the preservatives, colors, chemicals, artificial sweeteners in food. We definitely do not buy anything w/corn syrup in this house! I am a big label reader. I also like to avoid soy big time!-even for my husband and daughter. I think GMO’s are straight from the pit of hell. I just want to eat foods as close to nature as I can. That being said, I still do love plain potato chips sometimes…
WELL SINCE i CORRECTED MY DIET i DO NOT RUN PAINFULLY TO THE BATHROOM.
i MISS MILK, CAN’T HANDLE DAIRY
cEREAL DRY ….YUCK
ICE CREAM GOOD BYE
HELLO SHERBIT
RICE AND MORE RICE
MORE FRESH PRODUCE, STIR FRY MY NEW FAV
SALADS
NUTS AND DITTO ON AMY ‘S ^
PLAIN MEALS HAVE MADE MY BODY MUCH LESS CRAMPY.
I HAVE FEWER TRIPS TO THE BATHROOM WHERE EVERYTHING WOULD GO THRU ME AND I WOULD LOSE ALL THE FOOD VALUES….I’M GLAD OVERALL BECAUSE I FEEL SO MUCH BETTER. I DO ALLOW MYSELF TO CHEAT, BUT WISELY
FEWER INGREDIENTS…..SOMEWHAT BORING
OLIVE OIL
TINY BUTTER
MISS BREAD BUT I CHEAT
TEA HOT COLD ANYWAY I CAN MIX IT
NO FRIED FOODS OR GRAVY
AND I DO FEEL BETTER
NO MSG AND NO SOY
1. Post disease, what was your favorite food on the planet? My favorite food was probably vanilla ice cream and hot peach pie, home made. It might still be my favorite food…
2. Have you changed your diet post diagnosis? Yes. I studied the Weston A. Price Foundation’s information on nutrition. I started drinking raw milk, taking fermented cod liver oil, using coconut oil, and eating plenty of animal fat from grassfed animals. It has saved my life, and improved the lives of my family members greatly. It wasn’t until I started taking iodine that I realized how much my thyroid had been damaged. I looked at myself, and I had all the symptoms of thyroid disease: never sweating, eyebrows thinning, hair coming out in wads, tired all the time, dry skin and hair, slowing mind, etc. you know… I was allergic to iodine, but I learned how to do an allergy elimination so I could take it. I kept taking more and more, and the thyroid symptoms keep getting better.
3. Since changing your diet, what changes have you noticed with respect to symptoms and overall wellness?
Here’s what iodine in the context of a nutrient-dense diet did for me: LOTS more energy, digestion working WAY better, craving for sugar gone, hair stopped thinning, can go for hours without eating and feel okay. Overall wellness would be too much to write about here, but tests for heavy metals and other toxins are showing great improvements.
4. Do you have a favorite recipe that’s thyroid friendly? Yes! This dinner is rich in nutrients the thyroid gland needs to function properly, and nutrients that counteract autoimmune disorders, depression, and hormone imbalance.
Shrimp Etouffée
Three cups of large wild-caught shrimp, peeled (NOT from the Gulf of Mexico, the seafood there will be toxic for at least a decade)
1/4 cup butter from grassfed cows, or more if desired
1 cup finely chopped organic onion
1 tablespoon minced organic garlic
1/2 cup chopped organic red &/or green and/or yellow bell peppers (or more if desired)
1 cup of bone broth (made from slowly simmering bones of pastured chicken, beef, lamb, or wild-caught deep sea fish, or shellfish shells or shrimp skins, overnight)
1 large ripe organic tomato, peeled, seeded and chopped
1 teaspoon paprika (organic, not irradiated)
1/4 teaspoon cayenne if desired, or use pepper or chile
1 teaspoon unprocessed sea salt (or more to taste, not less!)
1/2 cup of cream from grassfed cows (or more if desired)
Rice:
4 cups white rice (preferably organic Basmati rice)
4 cups clean water (preferably no chlorine or fluoride)
1/4 cup butter from grassfed cows
1 teaspoon unrefined sea salt
Soak the rice: put it into an enameled pan with butter and salt and fresh clean water.
Saute onions, garlic, and bell peppers in half of the butter in a seasoned cast iron pan until the onions are limp.
Bring the rice to a boil.
Add broth and the tomato. Simmer 20 minutes at the lowest heat possible.
Once the rice is boiling roundly, cover it and lower the flame to as low as possible, cooking until done.
Add spices and salt to the sauce.
Add shrimp to the sauce, and cook until they are done (so they are pink and the flesh is no longer transparent, but not rubbery)
Add cream and stir until the sauce warms up to the perfect eating temperature.
Serve on a mound of the hot rice.
5. If you haven’t changed your diet, how do you feel? Have you noticed any different in symptoms and overall wellness? If I hadn’t changed my diet I’m sure I’d be dead by now.
6. What role has nutrition played in your life – full stop?
Food is the most important thing. If I am healthy, everything falls together, I can do anything I want. Food is the cornerstone of my health. Clean air, clean water, nutrient dense food. Everything else is okay if I can just have these three things. But who on Earth is allowed to have these three things anymore? I am so lucky my daughter has a farm, and I can get very high quality food where I live.
I’m sure I would have been dead by now if I hadn’t changed my diet. I would have been mystified by my sicknesses, gone to doctors, taken drugs, undergone surgery, and lost body parts. I would have continued to get worse, suffering greatly from headaches, candida overgrowth, hormone imbalance, thyroid disease, chronic fatigue, diabetes, fibromyalgia, and autoimmune problems. I was already well down that road. Then I would have gotten cancer from nutrient deficiency, or perhaps osteoporosis from cortisone drugs, or early dementia from antidepression drugs. The treatment for cancer would then have killed me, or perhaps I’d die from MRSA following a surgery, or maybe I’d have a car wreck from a diabetic coma.
I’m so thankful that there was an alternative to this sad story that I have seen repeated so many times. I’m so lucky that I took the other road, the road less traveled by. I hope the successful paths I have discovered can become superhighways for others who are looking for solutions for chronic health problems.