Don't Eat Anything

Remind me to not research the health benefits of food. It seems that everything has side effects that are bad for you.

In my desire (need!) to find foods that decrease peri-menopause symptoms, I ran across an interesting site that talked about not eating cruciferous vegetables as they interfere with the thyroid. Cruciferous veggies are fairly hard to avoid since they are a main staple in the American diet. (They also interfere with some prescription drug absorption rates.)

You can get rid of the bad goitrogenic properties if you cook them for 30 minutes. Can you say mush? And what of the nutritional values and other benefits after that much cooking?

There was (possibly) something to this avoidance as my internal temp settings seemed more reliable when I was in my lazy, spinach only mode. Once I added broccoli and cabbage back into the mix, I had cold/hot sleepless nights once more.

Ah spinach. My favorite childhood vegetable. The down side? It's chock full of oxalates which can cause kidney and/or gall bladder stones. There's also blocking the absorption of iron and calcium but no one seems to know by how much.

Of interest - it's better to get spinach in frozen form as the nutritional value deteriorates rapidly once picked.

Leeks were touted as a good one to add to the mix as they exhibit many of the same beneficial properties of onions and garlic with a milder flavor. (I do love raw onion dipped in salt with a glass of almond milk - another throwback to my younger days.)

The bad part about leeks? Oxalates - again.

Oxalates can also be reduced by boiling in lots of water and discarding all the water (and all the nutrients?).

My kidneys and gall bladder seem fine, for now. My shake recipe has morphed: frozen spinach, leeks, carrots, frozen fruit, cashews, bananas, flax oil, and vanilla almond milk with the optional raw chocolate powder.

A list of cruciferous vegetables and their pros and cons.

Even in eating healthy, it's a case of choosing your personal poisin.