Thyroid Tonic

What You Can Do to Nourish Your Thyroid

A number of nutrients and foods have been shown to contribute to healthy thyroid function. As you incorporate these into your diet, you should notice an improvement in your thyroid health.

Eat Only Healthy Fats and Oils

A number of health professionals now recommend that we eat only coconut oil, virgin olive oil, and butter. It is best to eat olive oil and butter sparingly. Coconut oil can be used in place of butter on toast, for example. Coconut oil is one of the most stable oils because of its medium-chain triglycerides. It will not easily turn to trans fatty acids when heated, making it one of the best oils for cooking. Avoid all other cooking oils. Never eat margarine. And read every label on packaged foods. If vegetable oil or soybean oil is listed, don’t buy it.

Be aware that most commercial salad dressings contain soybean oil or another polyunsaturated oil. You could benefit from preparing your own salad dressings and taking them with you when you travel or eat out. If that is not possible, ask for lemon slices and olive oil and prepare your own on the spot. Restaurant fried foods are particularly worrisome because the oils used are heated to very high temperatures and often used over and over for deep-frying. They are loaded with trans fatty acids. Whenever you can, prepare your own healthy foods at home and control the ingredients.

Many people have improved their thyroid health, have lost weight, and increased their energy by including two to three tablespoons of virgin coconut oil in their diet. There are a number of ways to do this. Cooking with the oil is the obvious method and it tastes great with every food from sautéed onions or vegetables to eggs to baked dishes.

You may also want to add one or two extra tablespoons of the oil to your diet daily. Smoothies are one way to accomplish this. You could try my Low-Carb Coconut Smoothie. I have also developed 101 smoothie recipes available in The Ultimate Smoothie Book. You may also wish to try my Coconut Treats recipe.4

Consume Plenty of Iodine-Rich Foods

Iodine is most abundant in sea vegetables, fish, seafood, and eggs. You can find a variety of dried sea vegetables at most health food stores, Asian markets, and some grocery stores. Add a strip of kombu to soups or bean dishes; sprinkle black seaweed on salads or add to soup. Season foods with dulse or kelp powder in place of salt. Eat more fish, especially the smaller coldwater fish, such as salmon (avoid farm-raised), mackerel, halibut, sole, and snapper. Avoid the larger fish such as tuna and swordfish; they tend to be higher in mercury. Choose cage-free, hormone and antibiotic-free eggs; they’re healthier.

Take Vitamin and Mineral Supplements

A number of nutrients have been shown to contribute to thyroid health; they include zinc, selenium, B vitamins, vitamin C, vitamin E, and vitamin A. Margaret Ames, Ph.D. says in her paper “Thyroid Health: Do You Have Hypothyroidism?” that individuals with hypothyroidism have been shown to have an impaired ability to convert beta-carotene to vitamin A, so care should be taken to include supplementation of vitamin A in addition to beta carotene.” She also adds that selenium is involved in conversion of T4 to T3 and low selenium levels could lead to low T3 levels. Because mercury will displace selenium, I would suggest a heavy metal detoxification program especially if you have had mercury amalgam fillings, have eaten a lot of tuna, or have been exposed to mercury in any other manner.

Juicing Can Help

Vegetable juicing can be particularly helpful in restoring health to the thyroid as well as the entire body. Radishes and radish juice can be quite beneficial. A sulphur compound found in the radish is a regulator of thyroixine and calcitonin (a peptide hormone). When enough of this sulphur compound is circulating in the bloodstream, the thyroid is less apt to over- or under-produce these hormones. A steady diet of radishes and radish juice can be quite beneficial. Try my Thyroid Tonic, which is the juice of carrots or cucumber, celery, radishes, and lemon. To that you can add a dash of powdered kelp or dulse for a boost of iodine.

Thyroid Tonic

1 carrot

1/2 cucumber

2 stalks of celery

1 whole bunch of radishes

1 whole lemon peeled

dash of kelp powder

Cranberry is another helpful juice. Because the bogs of Massachusetts where cranberries are grown are near the sea, cranberries contain iodine—35 parts per billion according to The Journal of Biochemistry (79:409-11; 1928). You can juice cranberries with a low-sugar apple such as pippin or Granny Smith and add a squeeze of lemon for an absolutely delicious cranberry juice cocktail and, unlike the store-bought cranberry juice (except for cranberry concentrate), it will not have added sugar. For other juice recipes, see my book The Juice Lady’s Guide to Juicing for Health (Avery, 1999).

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