Cauliflower is a versatile vegetable: raw, cooked, mashed, roasted, or riced. Using riced cauliflower allows you to recreate many rice dishes easily while maintaining a grain-free, low-carb eating style.
Use riced cauliflower as a substitute for all forms of rice without sacrificing taste or texture. While you can rice the cauliflower yourself in a food chopper or food processor, food retailers such as Trader Joe’s are now selling pre-riced bags for convenience. Our replacement for mashed potatoes is mashed cauliflower, a delicious substitute that tastes every bit as good without the excessive carbohydrate load of potatoes.
Cauliflower is a healthy choice. Consumption of cruciferous vegetables, such as Brussels sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, kale, and cauliflower, helps detoxify the body. They contain a class of natural compounds called glucosinolates that amplify the activity of liver enzymes that accelerate detoxification reactions, causing chemicals to be harmlessly excreted into the stool and then out of the body. This may account for the reduction in a variety of cancers in people who consume plenty of crucifers.
I cringe when people declare, “I avoid all cruciferous vegetables—such as cauliflower, horseradish, collard greens, radishes, turnips, and cabbage—because they block the thyroid.” Cruciferous vegetables are nutritious, including amping up cancer-protecting properties via chemical detoxification pathways in the liver. Eliminating them is foolhardy and unnecessary—if iodine intake is adequate. Hypothyroidism from eating foods like broccoli and kale is virtually unheard of, though it can occur with consumption of millet (a grain).
So the next time you see a recipe that contains rice, don’t despair, make your own version substituting healthy delicious cauliflower. Get creative… we did!
There are some great recipes in Undoctored to get you started.
About 2 months ago, I started supplementing my morning breakfast with 1-3 cups of raw kale arugula, or spinach but more often than not, raw kale. I started feeling very tired during the day, and started examining every other aspect of my diet as I didn’t think it could be the breakfast greens. Then I read how raw cruciferous veggies could block the iodine I was taking (300 mpg/day in Pure Encapsulations Thyroid Support Complex) and started cooking them. Almost overnight the tiredness went away and my breakfast greens are back in place, just cooked. I agree that cruciferous veggies are too healthy to pass up, but for some of us, cooking in water first may be a better option rather than eating raw.
Chris Murphy wrote: «Then I read how raw cruciferous veggies could block the iodine I was taking…»
Although your solution to that works, another approach is simply meal timing. Take supplement X at a different meal than any foods thought to interfere with it.
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“Use riced cauliflower as a substitute for all forms of rice without sacrificing taste or texture”
Rice is much better than cauliflower rice. I think you are sacrificing quite a bit there. But I do agree, cauliflower is a decent substitute. I prefer it more than mashed potatoes now, actually. I have let family and relatives who eat grains try it, and they were impressed.
Do you think it would completely destroy nutrients if you were microwaving it as opposed to steaming it? I always microwave riced cauliflower before I blend it into “potato” for convenience compared to a steamed version. Should I steam it instead to maximize the nutrients and/or fiber? Thanks
A month ago I went grain free. Well, almost. 2 small pieces of strawberry casada cake (mostly icing, not good either, for I don’t eat refined sugar), 2 tuna salad sandwiches, and one burger. Otherwise, grain free. No worst for the wear.
I’ve now launched a war against my RSD-brain: constant somnolence and foggy-headedness. I had to drop a class I was taking because I couldn’t make heads or tails out of what I was reading. I’ve learned that some patients have gotten Mannitol IV for the neurogenic edema, which would never happen around my area, so I found out that certain foods, such as cauliflower, have high mannitol levels, and that the body absorbs about 30 percent of the mannitol it consumes in foods. So, cauliflower rice it is!! Thanks for this!!
Susan Moore wrote: «A month ago I went grain free.»
Great. That’s a start. If you haven’t, be sure to implement the rest of the program, as there’s nothing lost in seeing if it helps with your RSD condition. Which RSD is that, by the way? There may be various program elements that offer specific benefits.
re: «Well, almost.»
Grains with adverse proteins and lectins (chiefly wheat) really need to be set to zero, no exceptions. Many other adverse food-like substances just need to be dialed way down, like sugars, non-grain starches, industrial fats.
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I am a mess I have tried so many diets and nothing works all 120 lbs of fat is around my stomach I look like I got a tractor trailor tire around my middle and it is so sad..i need help my dr has me on 125 mg of thyroid med I am so tired all the time can anyone tell me how this plan works
evelyn leggett wrote: «I have tried so many diets and nothing works…»
This works, and promptly, to turn health and weight around.
re: «…dr has me on 125 mg of thyroid med I am so tired all the time…»
What med? (I won’t be surprised if it’s some preparation that only provides T4.) What was the diagnosis, and based on what lab results? We’d be interested in:
• free (not total) T3
• free (not total) T4
• reverse T3
• two or more thyroid antibody tests
• TSH
• oral temp upon awakening (for several days)
(provide units of measure and lab Reference Ranges)
Again, I won’t be surprised if all you’ve ever been told is TSH.
re: «…can anyone tell me how this plan works»
It takes a book (or two), but you can learn a lot just browsing this blog, for example:
Wheat Belly: Quick and Dirty #3
To just dive right in, the Wheat Belly 10-Day Grain Detox book listed on that page is your best bet. For the whole rationale, and some insight into why you probably aren’t getting what you need from your doctor, and how to work around that, the new Undoctored book is the latest resource.
If you have hypothyroidism, do be aware that it’s a weight loss inhibitor until properly corrected. Getting consensus doctors to properly test, diagnose and treat it is one of several modern sickcare system scandals.
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