Since my preparation week for the Thyroid Healing Cleanse almost four weeks ago, I’ve been on the lookout for alternative options to the foods I need to avoid during the cleanse, which includes gluten, dairy, eggs, pork, soy, corn and canola oil (see my previous blog post here for background information on the cleanse and foods to avoid).
For someone who is not a ‘chef’ and only has moments of enjoying cooking, I’m finally getting into a good routine with all the additional food and cooking preparation that’s been required during my cleanse Choice C month. My aim is to starve the Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) from my system (that could be causing my chronic symptoms) and cleanse my body of dead viral cells, heavy metals and other toxins that have built up. So as such, I am eating a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables and healthy proteins as meals, juices, teas, soups and smoothies, while avoiding the above-mentioned foods. It has been a tiring process and I have to give my supportive and patient fiancé, Adam, props for allowing me to focus just on what I need to eat, while he has been cooking for himself and the kids. Thank you Adam 🥰
Despite it being a tiring process, I am being driven by the hope that I can feel much much better and essentially eliminate my Chronic Fatigue and thyroid issues.
Firstly I’d like to point out that you don’t necessarily need any alternative foods to dairy, gluten etc. You could just stick to clean eating with fresh fruit, vegetables, spices, herbs and protein that’s not pork or eggs. I myself, enjoy yoghurt and bread and pasta, and decided that if there were healthy alternatives out there then I would like to have them in my diet.
Alternative Foods to Dairy Products
So dairy alternatives….there are heaps of healthy alternatives out there now due to the Vegan movement. I am not a Vegan personally but I certainly have no issues with Vegans or the products made for them. Here are some products that I have discovered that are delicious and healthy and available at major supermarkets…
As soy is a food to avoid in the Thyroid Healing Cleanse, I have found coconut and almond based dairy products to be a great alternative for breakfast, smoothies, hot drinks, curries and even as a sour cream alternative (natural coconut yoghurt) to add to baked potatoes or home made Mexican or Greek food. There’s also no added sugars in these products for those watching their sugar intake, although sugar is not a food to avoid in the Thyroid Healing Cleanse, either is caffeine or alcohol (which I address further down).
Initially I couldn’t source any cheese alternatives that didn’t include any of the foods to avoid, including corn starch (like Bio Cheese). Then I received a great tip on Facebook to check out Artisa Vegan Cheese, which is a Tasmanian-based company where I happen to live! Out of the cheeses and butter (with ingredients listed online), the only ones not suitable for the Thyroid Healing Cleanse are the vegan butter and The Marinated St Clair which both have canola oil in them. Below is a photo of their cheese called Meltable that is quite suitable and seems awesome for pizza:
You can order Artisa cheese from their website and quite a few local businesses in the eastern states of Australia stock their products also, under Where To Buy on their website.
I’ll be trying Artisa cheese as well as another Vegan cheese business I found when searching for Artisa, called Lauds (also based in Tasmania).
Lauds also have some suitable cheeses available without the foods to avoid, including their meltable cheese called Original Oat Melt ** pictured below:
There are cheeses in the Lauds range that include soy so check the ingredients before purchasing. You can order online or buy from the local businesses in Tasmania listed on the Where To Buy page on their website.
** If you are Celiac or Gluten-Free due to allergies and are unsure whether you can have oats, please see the Laud’s FAQ page which addresses this question quite thoroughly. Pure oats are gluten free but have a protein called avenins that an individual’s body could react to like it is gluten. Some oats are also processed in the same factories as wheat etc and therefore can’t be classed as gluten free in Australia. The USA food guidelines show oats to be gluten free. I spoke to Dani at Laud’s. The oats that Lauds use are Kindred Organic Oats which aren’t processed with any other gluten based product. Dani has found (in her experience) that it has been 50/50 as to whether celiac sufferers react to the oat cheeses or not. In short, it is up to each individual person to know whether you can eat oat-based products, and best researched in consultation with a health professional. For the purposes of thoroughness, click here to see what Coeliac Australia has to say about oats.
I personally have no reactions or issues when eating oats or oat-based products, and for the purposes of the Thyroid Healing Cleanse, oats are ok to include in your diet as long as the oats product says “gluten free”. Quite a few product options come up when you do a google search for ‘gluten free oats’.
Nuttelex brand spreads have been awesome as an alternative to butter/margarine and come in many different types. I use the Olive Oil Nuttelex pictured below:
Gluten alternatives
Gluten alternatives had proven difficult. I have been gluten-free for over a year now but my regular gluten-free breads and pasta options are now not suitable for the Thyroid Healing cleanse as most of the gluten-free products also contained dairy, eggs, soy, corn and/or canola! I had pretty much decided I would just not worry about bread all together after standing at the gluten-free bread isle in the supermarkets for quite some time reading all the ingredients in each brand of gluten-free bread! (Yes I was determined and I really love toast with smashed avocado!!) This process actually proved easier and quicker than any google search (which came up nil using my search criteria)! In Hobart I went to Coles, Woolworths and IGA with no luck. I even rang Eumarrah Health Food store in Hobart City with no luck. Until I decided to check out Salamanca Fresh in Bellerive to pick up some fruit and veg close to where I live, and found they also sold gluten-free breads. After a minute of browsing, I came across these two bad boys….
Winner winner chicken dinner!! Vitality Gluten-Free Breakfast Bread and Natureen Flaxseed Wraps with no gluten, soy, canola, corn, dairy or eggs!! I did have to check where tapioca starch came from as I thought it might have been corn, but corn starch is actually maize so all good there! AND the breakfast bread is delicious! I would describe it as half way between raisin bread and normal grain bread in flavour. The paleo wrap is not as nice to eat as a fresh wrap but perfect as an alternative for a pizza-type meal (without cheese of course), or toasted to have with dips.
For gluten-free flour alternatives in baking, I have been using almond flour/meal, rice flour and/or coconut flour with baking powder as a raising agent (all found at major supermarkets).
For pasta alternatives, again this proved a bit harder as the regular gluten-free options I’ve had in the past also had corn flour/starch in them. Even the vermicelli rice noodles! So I have been cooking regular rice instead if the meal goes with rice, or making vegetable noodles, eg zucchini. But for those that really cannot do without their pasta/noodles like me, I did come across the below product in the gluten-free aisle at Coles and Woolworths: Slendier Calorie Clever Noodle Style (there is also a spaghetti variation also).
This product is made with an Asian vegetable called Konjac. The noodles don’t really have a flavour (just watery if anything due to being 95% water) so when you add your pasta sauces to it, it blends in well and doesn’t stand out while still giving you the ‘illusion’ of having pasta!
And finally instead of having any roti or naan bread with my Asian dishes, I have been enjoying good old fashioned pappadams!
What about soy, pork, eggs and canola alternatives?
Canola Oil
The Thyroid Healing book promotes coconut oil, sesame oil and olive oil as great healthy oil alternatives for cooking, as would most health professionals I’d say.
Soy
Soy on the other hand seems to be in so many packaged foods so if I want to have Chinese meals for example, I have just been making it from scratch using fresh garlic, salt, sugar and sesame oil as a basic sauce and adding other flavours depending on the meal, like ginger or homemade satay. Thai and Indian foods are the best meal options as they can pretty much be cooked normally without any of the foods I need to avoid, by using coconut milk/cream for example.
Pork
So pork is a food to avoid as it is the fattiest of the animal meats. For me, pork has been the easiest to remove from my daily diet and there are obviously heaps of protein alternatives that I can eat instead of pork. I do miss ham and bacon though. Protein alternatives that have a lower fat content are chicken breast, lean beef, lamb, kangaroo, venison, beans, lentils, quinoa and fish* to name a few.
* If you are doing the Choice B Heavy Metal Detox month in the Thyroid Healing book, then avoid tuna, swordfish and bass also.
Eggs
Eggs have been so hard for me to avoid, I LOVE eggs! So to not have poached eggs on toast, scrambled eggs or omelettes as an easy go to meal option has been very hard! I didn’t think there were any alternatives to eggs until I did a google search and came across this article (click on link) which has some great options for baking and cooking without eggs. Obviously if you’re doing the Thyroid Healing cleanse, only use the egg alternatives mentioned that don’t contain soy, corn and dairy.
What about Eating Out or Takeaway?
Throughout this cleanse process, I have found it easier to take my own food to friend’s houses (who know I’m doing the cleanse and won’t mind) or eat beforehand if going to a social outing.
The only takeaway options I’ve found here in Hobart so far that have options to meet all my ‘foods to avoid’ criteria, are Burger Haus and Taste of Asia. Taste of Asia is definitely my favourite of the two. Basically all their meals are soy free, gluten free, dairy free etc including the pappadams. I highly recommend the chicken massaman, mango chicken and yellow beef curry! Adam recommends the Thai green chicken curry 🍛. Burger Haus has lettuce cups as alternatives to bread rolls. So most burger or Thai/Indian places are your best bets for takeaway, and if in doubt then just check their online menus or ring beforehand.
Eating in at restaurants has meant investigating their menu online before going and/or ringing them prior to see what alternatives they offer. Do what you need to do I say! Most restaurants nowadays are quite accomodating to the various eating preferences out there, and they’ll soon tell you if they’re not! I recently had a chef at a local pub-style restaurant called The Foreshore in Lauderdale, Hobart, make up a vegetable curry for me which was delicious! Plain steak or grilled chicken and salad/vegetables are also a good and mostly safe “everything-free” option (check first before ordering just in case). AND if worse comes to worse, the good old potato or sweet potato chips with salt and pepper are a great alternative to going completely hungry if you find yourself stuck, so long as they’re gluten-free/corn flour free and cooked in oil other than canola. Some places like Italian or Chinese restaurants are going to be really hard to find alternative meals that don’t include the foods you need to avoid. So for a social occasion at a restaurant like that, I suggest ringing beforehand to see if they’re happy to reheat a meal you bring along so you’re still eating with everyone else. Otherwise eat beforehand and then enjoy a drink instead at the restaurant so you’re still doing the social thing.
What about caffeine, sugar, salt and alcohol?
The Thyroid Healing book doesn’t include caffeine, sugar, salt and alcohol as foods to avoid as they don’t fuel EBV. While they are not foods to avoid though, the Medical Medium, Anthony William (along with many other health practitioners), highly recommends keeping the consumption of them to a minimum, but especially while doing the Thyroid Healing cleanse, to keep yourself well hydrated and the blood thin to effectively cleanse your body of EBV and other toxins. Please read this blog post from the Medical Medium’s website for further details.
So that’s all folks! If I discover anything else I’ll edit it in as I go. I hope you have found this blog helpful. Leave a comment below with any alternatives you’ve discovered!
Until next time…take care of yourselves!
Terese Millhouse - From Chronic to Cured 