Thyroid and Vegetables

[Asr]

I did the Whole30 eating lots of good cauliflower,cabbage,broccoli,spinach and kale and got more and more tired and cold. After I finished, I found out by accident that all those veg and more are goitrogenic vegetables -- they interfere with the thyroid so if you have low thyroid like I do and even if you are on medication for it, it, they can still make you hypothyroid. So now I am off whole30 I am feeling better. So be warned and look up goitrogenic online and find out what to avoid. I find that it makes the range of veg on Whole30 too limiting, so I am just not doing another.

[ArtFossil]

I did the Whole30 eating lots of good cauliflower,cabbage,broccoli,spinach and kale and got more and more tired and cold. After I finished, I found out by accident that all those veg and more are goitrogenic vegetables -- they interfere with the thyroid so if you have low thyroid like I do and even if you are on medication for it, it, they can still make you hypothyroid. So now I am off whole30 I am feeling better. So be warned and look up goitrogenic online and find out what to avoid. I find that it makes the range of veg on Whole30 too limiting, so I am just not doing another.

This is "incomplete" advice, Asr and may mislead others. Thyroid disease which is controlled with thyroid replacement therapy will not be adversely affected eating broccoli or kale, etc. And one would not see such a drop in thyroid in the short time period of a Whole30. Further, Whole30 may well help the inflammation which accompanies some thyroid diseases.

I urge you to consult an expert endocrinologist and to make sure your thyroid condition is properly regulated. Such regulation requires monitoring and fine adjustments and may take time to fine tune, but including the vegetables you've listed WON'T affect your thyroid health while on thyroid medication and avoiding them WON'T lessen the need for proper medication.

[ladyshanny]

Hi Asr,

 

In case you are interested in troubleshooting beyond your comments on cruciferous veggies, it is worth pointing out that many, many people who come to Whole30 end up eating far lower carb than they realize which can lead to fatigue and that sort of "cold" that you are referring to.  We recommend that people include at least one fist sized portion of starchy veggie (potato, sweet potato, winter squash, beet, carrot etc) every day.  Some people do better with more and some people do better with less but it's at least a starting point with which to experiment.  Further, it is possible that you were also under-eating; something that again, many people do without realizing.

 

As Artfossil said, if you believe your thyroid condition is fluctuating, get yourself to your doctor.  But if this is something that happened just within the 30 days of your Whole30, chances are it's a much simpler fix.  Feel free to post a few typical days of foods if you're interested in troubleshooting.  

[Asr]

Firstly, I am under the care of a Doctor and my thyroid levels have been just fine for many years. If you read many Doctors and nutritionists, you will see that those vegetables and others like brussel Sprouts, many lettuces, and to a lesser extent sweet potatoes DO effect thyroid function. Some say cooking them lessens the extent of effect - some say by 30%, some do not specify and some say cooking does not change it. So I think if you are eating LARGE amounts of those veg as I was and you are hypothyroid  you should just keep it in mind.

I am just saying people might look at the amount of goitrogenic vegetables if they have problems on the diet and see if that might be the problem. And of course, you should check with your Doc although I doubt the average one would know much about goitrogenic veg since they know not a lot in detail about thyroid issues anyway.

In a typical day, I would eat a large sweet potato, a large cauliflower, brussel sprouts, spinach , kale, and a lot of various types of lettuce (some are goitrogenic, some not). I would always eat a sweet potato omelet in the morning (delicious by the way)  and often have carrots and the rest from lunch and later in the day. So now the sweet potato is out and there is no good opportunity for enough carbs anyway.

[Asr]

Just to be clearer I also ate a couple pieces of fruit a day and plenty of protein and veg at every meal. I followed the plan exactly, cooked good meals as to the plan from the books and eat three meals a day that included all those veg most days. Really, there seems to be no other explanation aside from the thyroid issues.

[ShannonM816]

Just to be clearer I also ate a couple pieces of fruit a day and plenty of protein and veg at every meal. I followed the plan exactly, cooked good meals as to the plan from the books and eat three meals a day that included all those veg most days. Really, there seems to be no other explanation aside from the thyroid issues.

 

There are plenty of non-goitrogenic vegetables out there that you (or anyone concerned about this) could eat instead. I'm not saying this to be argumentative -- your results are your results -- but just to point out that you could cut back on or even completely remove the offending vegetables and still have options, if you or anyone in a similar situation every wanted to try Whole30.

 

For instance, from what I know, these vegetables would work: kelp/seaweeds, fennel, bell peppers, carrots, squash, eggplant, tomato, zucchini, cucumber, asparagus, green beans, some lettuces, celery, leeks, beets. Given the huge number of vegetables that exist in the world, I'm sure I've missed some that would work. I may be wrong, but my understanding is also that many people in this situation can have *some* of these vegetables, occasionally, just not lots of them all the time, which would further expand options if you really needed it.

 

(If any of this is incorrect, I apologize. It's something I looked into briefly a while back, not something I've tried to put into practice myself.)

[Asr]

UPDATE: Because of the goitrogenic veg problem, I went off the whole30 after 31 days ....and promptly gained back 6 of my 9 ponds lost! I was very upset about having to stop the regime.

SO I talked to my Integrative Medicine Doc who laughed at my e-mail and said "I hear you were on the goitrogenic veg diet" He also asked about hypoglycemia but I always ate starchy veg, so he prescribed 200 mcg Selenium and 1000 mcg iodine to counter the veg and now I am going onto my second round! Hopefully works well and I can stay on it.

[keightlynn]

Hmmm I've never heard that before about those vegetables. My son is hypothyroid and the only thing his endo has ever told us to avoid is soy.

[PhysicsHippie]

For those of you with hypothyroid, such as myself, I suggest you read/re-read the chapter regarding special conditions in "It Starts With Food".  I don't remember the specific chapter because I let my friend borrow my book.

 

They call out autoimmune conditions, such as hypothydoid/Hashimotos and state that certain vegetables could affect their progress.  I have not been paying super close attention to this personally because having a few nightshades here and there and having cooked kale/broccoli doesn't affect me.  For those more sensitive, it may.

 

Part of the Whole30 process is finding how food really affects your body and what food can help you in the long run.  My friend, who doesn't have any known medical conditions, found she had a sensitivity to cauliflower.  It's just all dependent on your personal body chemistry/make-up.