Brassica and Thyroid

If you've been diagnosed with hypothyroidism, you've probably been told to avoid eating certain foods that contain goitrogens.  This would include the brassica family: broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kale, bok choi, turnips...Goitrogens are compounds that suppress the function of the thyroid by interfering with iodine uptake. 
Can the consumption of these foods cause hypothyroidism? 
Some physicians and nutritionists believe that this warning is unfair to the brassica family and exaggerated. 
Why?
-The goitrogenic compounds in these foods are destroyed by cooking.
-In order to have a negative effect on the thyroid hormones, one would need to ingest a huge amount of broccoli, which is very unlikely to happen over a long period of time. I'm yet to meet someone addicted to kale or Brussels sprouts (can't say that about sugar though, can I?)
Still, I would not recommend that anyone with hypothyroidism eat any of these foods in their raw form. Steaming, light sauteing are good options for these tender and beautiful veggies.

On the other hand, soy (I love to hate soy, so easy to do) by affecting the absorption of iodine has goitrogenic properties.  It's unfortunate that most people eat soy every day. Not just your garden variety vegetarian or vegan, mind you, but every person who buys processed foods ingests a fair amount of soy. 
Soy is everywhere, from energy bars to fake meats, from baked goods to cheese (cheese?!), from baby-formulas to noodles. Just check the labels of some of the packaged foods in your kitchen and look for these terms:
soy flour, hydrolysed vegetable protein, soy protein isolate, protein concentrate, textured vegetable protein, vegetable oil (simple, fully, or partially hydrogenated), plant sterols, or the emulsifier lecithin. 
Its many uses and disguises are telling of its value to manufacturers: endless and cheap.
Many vegetarians rely on tofu for proteins. Tofu is highly processed and difficult to digest. The human digestive tract is just not able to utilize tofu's proteins.
Tempeh and miso are the exceptions, as long as they've been fermented properly, using traditional and ancestral methods.
Seitan (which I aptly pronounced Satan for the longest time until I was corrected by an irate fundamentalist vegan who probably mistook my accent for a fashion statement) might take the first prize for ultimate franken-food. It's made from wheat gluten, the most allergenic part of wheat. I wonder who ever came up with this genial idea: let's make fake meat out of grains that most of us should not be eating in the first place, slap a label with a sunrise-over-a-cute-farm on it and promote it to eager non-meat eaters as the most ethical food ever to hit the shelf! 
It is a challenge to get quality proteins, whether one is carnivorous or not. Avoiding adulterated and toxic foods should be a priority if we are to avoid getting sick.
Buy grass-fed meats, more and more available in mainstream stores - even Costco sells grass-fed beef.
Support your local farmers by getting pastured chickens, eggs, pork.
And even though I'm no big fan of protein shakes (I think food should be chewed), high quality protein powders are available through health-care professionals. I would stay away from most powders sold in grocery stores or vitamins stores, as they're made from poor quality proteins, such as whey from cows raised in factory-farms, and processed at very high temperature. They also tend to include an arm-length list of unpronounceable ingredients.

We all know that processed foods are not healthy but they are source of iodized salt, and hence iodine. A lot of salt is lost when we shift from processed foods to a whole-food nutrient-rich diet and getting enough iodine can become a problem.
I usually recommend cooking with sea salts but most contain very little of no iodine at all. Adding kelp or kelp seasoning to the diet is a good option unless you've been diagnosed with Hashimoto's disease.
The use of iodine in the treatment of thyroid disease is controversial. Some hypothyroid patients  have successfully been treated with iodine. For people who have hypothyroidism caused by iodine deficiency, supplemental iodine is both necessary and effective but should only been done under a physician's watch.

Enough blah blah blah, let's move on to serious matters: a recipe!

And today's winner is quick and simple and delicious.

Roasted Cream of Broccoli Soup

preparation: 5mns
Servings: 6

Ingredients

    1 1/2 lbs. broccoli florets
    4 shallots, peeled and sliced
    1/4 cup olive oil
    1 tsp. Celtic salt
    1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
    4 cups organic chicken broth or vegetable broth
    1 cup coconut milk
    
Directions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. 
Put  broccoli florets and shallot slices in a bowl. 
Pour olive oil over, add salt and pepper and mix well.
Spread mixture onto a large cookie sheet.

Roast in the oven for 15 minutes, remove and cover with foil. Let it sit.

Bring the stock to a boil in a large stockpot. 
Add the broccoli mixture and return to a boil. 
Lower heat down to simmer for 10 minutes.

Blend with wand-mixture until smooth. Stir in coconut milk and reheat to warm.