Hi, I’m out with family tonight at a Japanese restaurant, for the first time since being diagnosed as having hypothyroidism 6 months ago. I’m on 100mcg Levothyroxine and due blood tests for a review in 10 days.
I simply love and crave edamame beans, sushi (esp seaweed), prawns etc.
I browse this forum daily to learn about my illness sure I’ve read about avoiding some of these foods?
Any advice please as I don’t want to scew my results?
Thank you 😊
Yep…..ideally no soya (edamame beans) and not too much seaweed
So the bad news is that Japanese food contains a lot of soy and that can be bad for people with a thyroid condition. It's a goitrogen and can inhibit absorption of thyroid hormone. I'll post you a link explaining it. I'm sure some poeple are more sensitive than others, for instance I would know about it in dark chocolate made with a tiny amount of soy lecithin. See how you feel after the meal but it's something to bare in mind.
Thank you Slow Dragon and Jaydee1507, that’s interesting and I’m learning every day.
I wonder if I brought on my hypothyroidism with my diet, which changed as I went through my divorce, menopause, stress and mental health issues.
The foods listed below are some of my favourites and always have been! I thought I was listening to my body by eating what I was craving and lost 2 stone (sadly now back on!)
I had absolutely no idea that all these foods collectively sat in the same group.
For example I would snack on seaweed crisps, have stir-fried broccoli/cabbage/edamame with soy sauce most days. Drink miso soup. I even started chopping up kale leaves in place of salad leaves.
I have cut out seaweed as a snack now, but ironically replaced it’s with cauliflower florets. I crave raw and cooked mushrooms (Vit D) tuna, cod and lots of prawns (iodine?).
I love dark chocolate. I love soya sauce, I remember as kid I would go to my mums cupboard and drink it by the spoonful!
Perhaps once I get my Medichecks bloods in a few weeks I’ll ask for help on what I need to look at nutritionally wise as maybe I’m eating the wrong things.
Once in a while enjoying a meal out and eating slightly differently will have minimal effect so enjoy.On a daily basis soy has been shown to block the uptake of thyroid hormones. However it is not clear just how much you need to take for this to happen.
Iodine can also cause problems for some hypos so the advice is generally to avoid foods such as seaweed etc that are high in iodine.
With hypo people it's more a case of what supplements we need. Being hypo causes poor absorption of nutrients so even on the best of diets our vitamin levels are low. Good diet is still of course relevant but would never be enough to get vitamin levels to optimal.
It does sound like you've got into a pattern of eating less than ideal foods that would benefit from change.
As soy sauce is fermented I believe it is okay. It is things like tofu, edamame and soy milk where the beans are not fermented you need to watch out for.
With dark chocolate, some have lecithins and some don't. Check the ingredients list. Good dark chocolate only has a handful of ingredients, so it's easy to check. I just looked over the ones I can get in my online grocery shop and all the Lindt or Green & Blacks dark choc I checked, plus half the premium own brand didn't have Lecithins.
For goitrogens, you don't necessarily have to avoid everything, it is more something to cut down on and be aware of your intake. You might want to experiment and find out if you see particularly sensitive. I would say if you're looking to adjust your diet trying gluten free is probably higher priority, as around 80% of Hashimoto's sufferers will benefit from it. You can also try dairy free as a sizeable minority struggle with that, too.
it is kelp that is very high in iodine. I think Nori, the seaweed used in sushi and those delicious wafer things, is low in iodine but you better check. I read that, chose to believe it and resumed eating seaweed snacks. The broccoli floret things should be fine too because broccoli is a goitrogen only when raw. Those little floerets are deep fried and therefore bad for trans fat reasons. Choose your battles.
as a one off - eat anything - you won’t notice any ill effect - unless you dwell on it too much 
Horrid example, but I wish that had been the case for my poor dog, poisoned by a "treat" left by a gamekeeper for foxes.
You shouldn't take soya products. It effects your thyroxine.
I was told by a doctor years ago not to limit my diet. To eat as wide a variety of fruit, veg, grains and legumes as possible and if something I ate regularly, like soya products, affected my levothyroxine absorption then it would show in my blood test results and they would adjust my dose as needed. It is far more important to eat healthily and consume as many nutrients as possible than to restrict our diets and have the thyroid function fail from lack of nutrition and then have to live off vitamin and mineral supplements in order to restore thyroid function. Eat what you like and enjoy. Japanese food is amazing!
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I’m struggling again is there anything else I should be doing?
