What Can I Eat?

I've had a request for a What Can I Eat? List. I'm a big proponent of giving the reason why we eat specific kinds of foods. It works for my learning style if I understand the purpose behind doing anything. Some individuals just want the list and move on, but they may forget why they quit eating a certain food. I forget less when I know why something is on the "no" list.

Then again, when we only see the "no" list, it's rather limiting. Where's the road map? I gotta know how to do this.

No two thyroid patients have the same needs, so what I describe for you here is what I need to follow. I'm stating what I took out of my diet and then what I do allow as a substitute. I follow a sugar-free (limited sugars), gluten-free, yeast-free, limited caffeine, soy-free, peanut-free diet. Feel sorry for me yet? I feel extremely better with these nutrition rules. If you've been in a really bad phase that drags on for years and just gets worse and worse to the point where you start thinking you might be dying and the doctors are just missing the cancer diagnosis...but it's just your wonky thyroid...you become desperate enough to give up your "allergens." These are my food allergens.

Sugar-free

I have plummeting blood sugar issues, right? Sugar makes it worse, even natural sugars in fruit. Though my doctor says I can have one serving of fruit a day (mind you, one serving is smaller than most of us realize), I don't even have it once a week. When I do, it's only that one time that week and it's dessert. I feel better when I limit fruit. Though it is not processed sugar, my body no longer does a good job of processing it. I'm not fighting it, then. I'm a fast learner (my husband recently teased me that my date rape drug was sugar, that's how bad my reaction to it is). Thus, I limit the highest sugared fruits, which include watermelon, peaches, pears, bananas, pineapple, and figs. I enjoy grapes, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, kiwi, halo oranges, and cantaloupe in small doses. I pick smaller fruits or buy a fruit tray and let my family take most of it.

In addition, I removed milk from my diet (11g of sugar per serving) and yogurt and read every spaghetti sauce label for an ideal 3g of sugar or less (some have 14g!). You can find teriyaki sauce and litany of other things with lower sugar if you just become a label-reader. The first few trips to the grocery store are pretty long trips when you start reading labels, but then you start memorizing the best brands and products and it goes by faster.

Splenda, Stevia, and Agave

When it comes to baking, there are certain choices that don't affect the sugar anomaly for those of us with thyroid issues. I have used Splenda successfully both for the family taste-test and my body's reaction to it. The brand even has a brown-sugar version, giving more versatility in the kitchen. I'm a fan of George Stella's recipes and he uses Splenda. Stevia gives me issue, so I don't use it at all. My favorite is agave syrup because it's natural and has NO effect on my blood sugar control. They even sell agave syrup coffee flavor add-ins (that's the way to go!).

I got the agave idea from The Coconut Mama because my mom had bought a bunch of Red Mills flours for us to try and I googled recipes with coconut flour. This site has some easy recipes, and I'm a big fan of the coconut muffins. The original recipe has a note at the bottom stating some variations on the recipe. I took that advice and I've varied the coconut muffins by adding lemon extract for lemon muffins and creating a chocolate muffin (my daughter Bianca titled it Chocolate McGuffin Muffins) by adding cocoa powder (1g sugar) and dark chocolate chips or semisweet chocolate chips. I don't get to keep them to myself never mind I'm the only one who has to eat this way. My doctor just laughs at me when I say my family steals my sugar-free foods.

When using agave syrup, 2/3 cup equals 1 cup of sugar. Plus, you reduce the amount of flour in your recipe because of the syrup's liquid. For coconut flour, you don't use any water. Instead, you use a bunch of eggs. It's easier to cook this way than I anticipated.

Flours

I've already referred to coconut flour, but staying away from wheat is extremely important. Why? It can inflame your body giving you joint pain. muscle stiffness and soreness. Wheat also helps your blood bind the bad cholesterol. When doc says "I can tell from your lowered bad cholesterol count that you have been eating a lower-carb diet" I know it's because wheat doesn't touch these lips. Still, I don't eat no-carb. I eat carbs, but it's the right carbs. Corn tortillas are my taco night thang. Enchiladas and coconut muffins and I used Red Mill's All Purpose Flour (gluten free) to bake a cake with agave syrup. I just need to work on an all natural sugar-free icing and I'll be a pro! Also, remind me to tell you about all about how wheat is harvested with Round-Up. Oh yes, George Stella has fantastic recipes with alternative flours!

Yeast

My doctor explained to me something no one else had ever been able to do before. You see, I have vitiligo. No one could explain to me how that happens except that it just happens. Well, my doctor explained that when our guts get out of sync because of antibiotics, a body tends to attack itself . Vitiligo is an autoimmune condition just like thyroid issues are. When I brought that up to my mom, we connected the dots to tymplasty ear surgeries I had when I was 10 due to recurrent ear infections (for which they prescribed dose after dose of guess what? antibiotics!). Guess when the vitiligo started manifesting? The summer after those surgeries.

Thus, yeast is to be avoided. It grows in your gut and provides a fantastic environment for that naughty bacteria to grow since antibiotics killed all the good ones along with the bad. There's no gut police to put the serial killers in jail. So, they run havoc on your gut. That means bread is a major issue for those who need to get their guts back in balance because it helps the yeast grow. Also, beer and beer-battered anything, though delicious, is not your friend. Doc even has me taking a mega-probiotic to help balance my gut. Dr. Hotze's book has a more detailed list of foods to avoid in order to help balance the gut.

Limited Caffeine

I do not know why, but if I drink enough caffeine, like a diet coke or a cup of black coffee, I start to have issues where I need to go to the restroom RIGHT NOW or there will be an accident. That's not a fun thing to mess with when you're a teacher and you don't have someone to cover for you at the drop of a hat. So, I limit caffeine. I drink decaf coffee during the winter months when I crave it most, but I actually stopped the caffeine habit a year ago. I never thought that imaginable. I seem to be the only one in my family with the caffeine issue. Booo!

Soy-Free

Goitrogens are those evil foods that affect the thyroid. They can help it swell (a goiter) and help nodules grow. Soy is a goitrogen. I love foods made with it, which is just rotten luck. I've learned to avoid it or limit it to a few trips. My girls love Chinese food and that was my daughter's birthday meal request. Luckily for them, their Daddy will take them when I'm away at a workshop so they can enjoy it and I'm not dealing with a swollen thyroid the next week or so.

I do have a cooking solution, though. I recently found a coconut-derived soy-free soy sauce by Coconut Aminos. Now, that's an oxymoron (soy-free soy sauce!) and I love it! I made Coconut Curry Chicken with it and it tasted just as good as the recipe I used to use (I'm planning on adding some recipes to the site!).

Peanut-Free

Once upon a time, when my health was really bad, I was eating peanut butter with sugar-free jelly on Ezekiel bread (good stuff, that). Then, I figured out it had more sugar than I needed in one sitting never mind the protein count. So, I dropped it. I added back protein bars with low sugar with peanuts and after an elimination diet, you realize pretty quickly which foods make your thyroid swell or bring back symptoms...and peanuts is one of my enemies. No, I don't go into anaphylactic shock and I don't need an EPI pen...but I'm allergic to peanuts.  I've read that cashews are also a goitrogen. Instead, I eat almonds, sunflower seeds, Brazil nuts, hazelnuts, pecans (limited), and pumpkin seeds.

Again, I write all this because it's a short cut for you. As you eliminate foods from your diet, you start to learn what triggers episodes and symptoms. You learn what substitutes work for the diet but not against your taste buds (mashed potatoes with chicken broth and butter instead of milk!). It's a process and I'm still discovering things. I just hope I can give you shortcuts so your return to health doesn't take as long as mind did (or longer).