How to Actually Cook for Hashimoto’s with Hypothyroid Chef Ginny Mahar

Inna (00:03.042)

I am so excited to welcome Ginny Mahar. She is a Le Cardon Blutrain Chef, functional and Harvard certified chef coach and a health coach. She’s the creator of Hypothyroid Chef and the Thrivers Club community where she helps thyroid patients thrive through thyroid friendly cooking, nutrition, lifestyle. She is also the author of The Thyroid 30 Cookbook, A 30 Day Plan to Restore Your Energy. Plus she’s the creator of

Thyroid Authority, which is a whole health wellness framework. Ginny, I just love how you empower people who have hypothyroidism and Hashimoto’s through all of your platforms and your courses to eat well, to live well, and to feel well. So I am just really, really excited to have you. Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Ginny Mahar (00:50.519)

Thank you, Ina. I’m so excited to be here. Thanks for having me on the show.

Inna (00:54.564)

my gosh, of course. having a chef on the show is so helpful in general, but a thyroid specific chef, like, wow, even better. And so I want to get into everything today from thyroid specific foods, but also all of the cooking itself, right? The pots and the pans and the tools and the strategies, because we all know that it is helpful to have some home cooked meals, right? We can’t order out all the time as much as we may want to sometimes.

And so I know that this is going to be so helpful to everyone that’s listening. But let’s start with the food part first. And so because everyone listening has some type of a thyroid issue, Hashimoto’s or an autoimmune disease, can you tell us when you talk about thyroid friendly eating, what do you mean by that? And what is thyroid friendly eating?

Ginny Mahar (01:46.935)

Yeah, so I think the basic premise, like the main primary thing and goal of thyroid friendly eating is anti-inflammatory eating.

That’s probably the simplest way to put it. And of course, you know, with anti-inflammatory eating, I always say there’s three parts of it, right? We want to be avoiding inflammatory foods, the refined sugar, the refined white flour, all that, you know, the processed foods, you know, the baked goods, the, you know, all that, like the standard American diet that’s so heavy in those inflammatory foods, deep fried things, inflammatory oils,

processed foods, my gosh, ultra processed foods, these things are just not going to do us any favors. So avoiding those inflammatory foods, also incorporating anti inflammatory foods. So you know, things like our wild caught salmon, our walnuts are

anti-inflammatory spices like ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, incorporating lots of colorful plant foods. And then the third part of anti-inflammatory eating is also avoiding foods that you’re personally sensitive to. And that really comes into play with a lot of us with thyroid issues, right? Because so many of us have food sensitivities to things like gluten, you know, that tops the list, of course, dairy, there can be other problem foods.

eggs, grains.

Ginny Mahar (03:23.521)

you know, it depends on the individual, right? Some of us are sensitive to nightshades. So we get into like real bio individual territory with that. But when we’re eating foods that are inflammatory or sorry, that we’re sensitive to personally, they’re gonna, you know, drive that inflammation that’s gonna make our symptoms worse. Inflammation is also a big piece of the Hashimoto’s puzzle, right? So that’s kind of the like baseline is that anti-inflammatory eating. But to sort of get more

to zoom in a little bit more to the thyroid friendly aspect of it. The building blocks of when I think of like what makes up thyroid friendly meals.

lots of colorful produce to get those phytonutrients, the antioxidants, those anti-inflammatory compounds to give us energy to feed our cells and our mitochondria so we can have energy. And then plenty of high quality protein, such a huge driver in how we feel in making sure that we’re maintaining our muscle mass, that we’re balancing our other macros and having healthy blood sugar balance, so many important things.

detoxification, know, relies on making sure we’re getting adequate protein. And then of course, healthy fats, those are going to help with things like our brain health, our cognition, the brain fog that so many of us deal with, right memory issues.

Healthy fats can also be really helpful for the anti-inflammatory piece, depending on what type of fat you’re talking about. And then of course, adequate hydration, really important. And the other piece that I add to that is just trying to focus on nutrients that support the thyroid in some way, maybe directly or indirectly. Maybe they’re supportive to gut health, so we’re better absorbing and converting our thyroid hormone. And maybe they’re, you know,

Ginny Mahar (05:19.119)

more directly impactful to the thyroid like selenium or maybe they’re helpful with our immunity, our gut, our inflammation, things like vitamin D. So just really thinking about trying to incorporate a lot of what I call thyroid supportive nutrients.

and getting that healthy balance of macros among those, the colorful produce, the high quality proteins, the healthy fats. But yeah, the principles are anti-inflammatory number one. After that, nutrient dense, gut healing, the gut is such a huge player in how we feel and we’re so much more prone to gut health issues with thyroid issues. Studies have shown we’re like up to five times

more likely to end up with gut imbalances and gut issues like leaky gut and dysbiosis. So it’s got to be gut health supportive, blood sugar friendly, hormone friendly, and ultimately it’s personalized to the individual. What foods do you thrive on as an individual and what foods don’t you thrive on as an individual? So that’s kind of the nutshell version of

of thyroid-friendly eating. That’s my philosophy and approach to it.

Inna (06:42.914)

Yeah. And I love that you’re mentioning this specific for thyroid because I think we hear some of these things and I think people get used to hearing it and they say, yeah, I know, I know, I know. But the thing is knowing it doesn’t actually mean doing it, right? mean, eating colorful fruits and vegetables, people was like, I’ve heard that before. But then I said, well, do you do that? How do you put those in like, yeah, I don’t. So sometimes we need to hear things over and over and over again, which is so important.

Ginny Mahar (07:09.656)

Yeah.

Inna (07:12.44)

But I also love that you’re saying is that it is individual to the person as well. So you mentioned foods that we may be sensitive to that are going to be different, but also the foods that someone is going to thrive on are going to be different. Even if both people have Hashimoto’s, even if they both have hypothyroidism and even if they’re both women and perhaps even they’re the same age in the same, you know, demographic as well. So how do people go about

figuring out what they thrive on. What do you typically recommend? Are there testing that you use or do you like to use questionnaires or do you like to use elimination diets or, you know, is it something where people maybe keep a journal? Cause there’s a lot of different ways and I know everyone has their favorite of what they find works for them.

Ginny Mahar (07:54.611)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I’m so glad you asked. This is like a hot topic right now, isn’t it? Because there are, there’s more than one ways to do this. There’s, testing. What I do a lot of education on is the elimination reintroduction technique, which is still considered the gold standard for identifying food sensitivities. And we all need a starting point, right? Like as we kind of touched on.

I wish there was, but there is no one size fits all. This is the thyroid friendly diet, right? It doesn’t exist. We have different root cause factors. We have our different individual makeup. We have unique needs and sensitivities. So we’ve got to figure out a way to understand, well, how can I, where do I even get started with this? How do I even begin? If personalization is the long-term goal, what’s step one, right?

And so that’s where I really think a great starting point and a helpful tool for us is to lean on some of those therapeutic dietary templates. So, you know, if people want like a, what would be like step zero, okay? I would say if you’re eating like a standard American diet, just eating real food, starting there, getting in the practice of cooking more.

this is one of the most impactful things we can do for our health. After that, know, gluten, I think most of us are going to get some, we’re going to get some really good personal data by eliminating gluten and seeing how we do. And you know, if we’re not celiac or something like you can even try reintroducing it. And then you, by doing that, you can really pinpoint and connect those dots between what does this food do in my body? What symptoms does this food drop?

And that’s really helpful. coming at it from a, like doing one food at a time really simplifies the process, but some people want to go like further faster, right? So we can go maybe gluten and dairy free. In my ecosystem, that’s what I call level one. Level two would be paleo and level three would be the autoimmune protocol.

Ginny Mahar (10:16.511)

And so these are, think of them as like stair-step levels, not because one is better than the other or anything like that, but because each level eliminates more foods. And so…

Because of that, like we can use that technique where we’re using one of those dietary templates that eliminates several things like paleo you’re going to be avoiding, not just gluten, not just dairy, you know, refined sugar, all processed foods, grains, legumes, you know, but you can still have things like nightshades and eggs that you can’t have on something like the autoimmune protocol, right? So it gets like a little more restrictive as those stair steps go.

up with that added restriction we get a couple opportunities. We eliminate all these foods and we can do like a really I think more concentrated healing focused like

therapeutic time on these protocols. of course, it always depends on what your practitioner says and where you’re at, right? But for someone who’s, say, trying to address some gut health issues like leaky gut, something like the autoimmune protocol might be used for a couple months before starting reintroductions. there’s different approaches there, but there’s those common dietary templates that a lot of

thyroid thrivers use. And what they do is they give us a common language. They

Ginny Mahar (11:55.305)

They also make it easier to search for recipes. That’s how I organized my book is all the recipes are gluten and dairy free. Most of them are also paleo. Many of them are also AIP and the meal plans in there are those levels one, two, and three. So gluten free dairy, there’s a gluten free dairy free meal plan, a paleo meal plan, and an AIP meal plan.

when we embark on something like that, when we get to the end of the elimination phase, we have the opportunity to reintroduce foods one at a time, waiting a few days between each reintroduction and being good scientists and taking really good notes, having a food journal. I’ve got lots of resources on this for my community and stuff for tracking like reintroductions and that whole process so that

when we reintroduce one food at a time so that we can isolate our reactions to those foods and again connect those dots point A to point B. What does this food do in my body? I did paleo for six weeks or eight weeks or something like that and now I’m reintroducing grains and you know the whatever it is legume now I can really see like is this food an issue for me?

Inna (13:12.206)

Thank

Ginny Mahar (13:17.267)

how do I feel reincorporating it? And that’s just so valuable because when we connect those dots between what food does, you know, creates which symptoms in my body, I think it helps us tap into some of our innate motivation to make good food choices, to choose the foods that love our bodies back.

Inna (13:40.962)

Mm-hmm.

Ginny Mahar (13:41.331)

and to avoid the foods. Maybe we’re not completely eliminating them. Maybe we have certain thresholds or we’re minimizing them in the diet, but we know if I eat a lot of dairy, I end up bloated and with joint pain, depending just as an example. So that’s sort of the process that I really help my community with.

Inna (14:00.995)

Yeah.

Ginny Mahar (14:08.367)

And also, you know, as a health coach, I’m there to help people with what their practitioners are recommending to them. And that might be.

Hey, my doctor said I need to do six weeks on strict AIP to heal my gut or so, you know, so I’m there to say, all right, let’s talk about how this works. What’s really important, you know, to do some of that guidance and handholding. Let me point you to some really great recipes and meal plans for this so we can make this easier and more doable. Because, like you said, it isn’t just the what of it. It’s not just knowing what to do.

It’s the how of how to do it. And I think that’s really kind of where my passion is and where I’ve focused a lot of my efforts in supporting this community.

Inna (14:57.902)

Which is great. And I love that the book is also organized in the way where they can look at gluten-free dairy feed versus paleo versus AAP, because so many people, just like you said, will see a practitioner and, you know, they’re amazing practitioners and they’re giving them protocols and supplements, but a lot of times they’re not actually sitting down and helping them with how do you implement that. And I think that it’s one thing to look for recipes online.

Ginny Mahar (15:19.907)

Mm-hmm.

Inna (15:24.482)

But I think it’s another one, you have all of the recipes in a specific plan that’s really made for thyroid that makes it easier, especially if they know like they need to be following this specific plan because their practitioner recommended it because maybe they’ve been on it because that’s the other thing too. There’s some people who thrive on a specific plan and they’re on it for a little while and they enjoy it, but then it can get boring eating the same things. I know for me, I, we rotate our recipes like we have.

things on Monday, things on Tuesday. And I’m like, right, I need more than seven things. But you will kind of become a creature of habit. So it’s so nice to have good things, but looking at things online, sometimes you just don’t know what you’re getting and how does it fit and what are the macros. So having it in a book like that is just so helpful for all of us thyroid thrivers.

Ginny Mahar (16:06.307)

work.

And there are pitfalls too, aren’t there? I mean, AIP isn’t right for everyone. I think that’s something we’ve learned as a community that there are some caveats here. For people with a history of disordered eating, AIP can be very triggering. It’s also really important to understand things like the elimination phase of paleo or AIP is meant to be temporary. And it’s a stepping stone to get to more food.

freedom. The goal is to reintroduce as many foods as possible. Get to as much food freedom as you can possibly have so that you can live and enjoy your life and not have these rigid restrictions or feel like if I don’t follow this super restrictive protocol I’m going to lose all the progress I made with my health. So that it takes a lot of guidance and there is nuance and it takes time and it takes reminding that

reintroductions are really important and that the long-term goal is ultimately that personalized protocol, right? Because there’s very few, you know, as I have my own podcast too, I’m sure it’s so fun to get to know all these other thyroid experts, right? And I would guess almost none of them are like, oh, I just follow strict.

Paleo or AIP, we’re all like on a, know, eventually you get to that point of I’m on my own personalized protocol. You could call it modified personalized paleo or something like that, but it’s still like, I kind of know what my body likes and doesn’t like because I’ve done that experimentation. I’ve done the elimination reintroduction trials. Even over, you know, like we just are coming onto the holidays, right? And all these people are feeling

Ginny Mahar (18:00.359)

bloated and inflamed and it’s like you know what you did nothing wrong by just living your life some of us we’re going to do that right we’re going to have those moments this is an opportunity to collect more personal data how do i feel after i ate a whole bunch of cheese over the holidays you know how do i feel after i maybe indulged in foods that i don’t normally eat or ate way more sugar than i’m used to

that’s great personal data. And when we collect that body of data about ourselves and learn to listen to and honor the feedback our body’s giving us, I think making the right choices around food, those personalized choices around food becomes a lot easier and more intuitive.

Inna (18:47.734)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I think it’s so good to really just have people understand that because I think so often we feel at the mercy of, you know, just everything and the disease really, but we have so many choices and, by doing this, like you said, you get to see what works for you.

And as people find out more about what works for them and the foods that they do better with, it’s really important that they know what to do with those foods, right? How can we cook them? How can we prepare them? How can we make that easier? So I’d love to get into that. So, gosh, so many questions. I think let’s start with prepping things ahead of time, because that’s one of the things that many, providers recommend because so many people

In addition to having Hashimoto’s, which already makes them tired and already makes them brain foggy and all of the other symptoms, right? But then, you know, they usually have a job. They, a lot of times have a family or the people they’re taking care of and friends and community. And so as much as it is very nice to spend the whole day cooking and preparing stuff for ourselves, that’s not really realistic for most people on top of also just not having enough energy to do that. So.

It’s always recommended to try to think of things ahead of time and prep. So can you give us some advice on how people can do that in a way that really works for thyroid and helping to preserve our energy, but also in a way that still makes the food delicious? Because for some people, and I’m one of them, I don’t love leftovers. I mean, yes, I eat leftovers, but I don’t love a lot of leftovers. And I think there’s some foods that just do better leftover than others.

Ginny Mahar (20:29.879)

Let me turn.

Ginny Mahar (20:36.643)

Hmm.

Inna (20:36.942)

And also there’s some people who may have histamine issues where we want to be careful about leaving foods in the fridge for too long because histamines increase in that and that can create other problems that can kind of go alongside of Hashimoto’s as well. So would love to get your take and thoughts and tips on all this.

Ginny Mahar (20:50.871)

Mm-hmm.

Ginny Mahar (20:55.363)

Yes, yeah, you know, one of the things when I started out as Hypothyroid Chef back in 2015, I was coming out of like, long, you know, I’ve been cooking professionally in one way or another since I was 19. So my focus was always like, and doing like fine dining, like restaurant food, and, you know, these fancy chefy recipes, and I quickly learned, this is a different demographic. These, you know, these aren’t necessarily people who love to cook.

who want to spend a lot of time cooking, there are people who wanna feel better. even me, nobody wants to cook all day, I love to cook and I don’t wanna cook all day. And one of the realities of feeling better is we’re going to feel better the more we prepare whole food, home cooked meals. I mean, there’s mountains of scientific evidence about this, right? So it is important for everyone. It’s kind of one of those things like avoiding ultra processed foods.

one of the best things we can do for our health is cooking more and eating more of those home prepared whole food based meals. So how do we make that doable without losing our minds without feeling like we’re cooking or doing dishes all day long and for that you know that scenario and that like kind of helped me with this because I don’t want to spend a lot of time cooking and I need to have meals on hand for you know my busy life or whatever it is.

My main approach that I really like for that is to stick with simple meal prep staples.

So, and I’ll get to the leftovers issue on this, but to think about things that you could maybe spend a couple hours on a Sunday, putting some things together so you have them ready to go in the fridge and can then make meals out of maybe five or six different components throughout the week. So you could do something like,

Ginny Mahar (23:00.707)

a simple like shredded chicken. You can poach the chicken. I like to toss it with a little olive oil and lemon juice, some fresh herbs. Sometimes I’ll make some meatballs, things like that. I like some plant-based proteins like lentils, know, things like that tend to…

keep you know you were mentioning some things keep better than others. Things like that tend to keep pretty well and we can use them in a number of different ways. We could put that shredded chicken cold on a salad, we could heat up some of those lentils and toss you know some of that shredded chicken with it, maybe throw in some baby spinach you know that’s like pre-washed baby spinach, throw in a simple vinaigrette, that’s a delicious salad right and it’s

Once the prep is done, the lentils are made, the chicken is done, that’s a five-minute power lunch you can throw together. So things like that. This time of year…

roasting some winter squash. love to do mashed winter squash. I’ll combine it with some bone broth and then depending on my menu, some kind of flavorings. with this approach, when you’re doing your meal prep, say you’re meal prepping on Sunday, I always recommend pick a certain theme for that menu, like maybe Mediterranean, maybe Asian-inspired, maybe Latin-inspired. So you’re using similar

flavorings and then you can mix and match all these components really easily, right? So let’s just say like you’re doing a Mediterranean menu. You can do, you you’ve got your shredded chicken with lemon and herbs, your, you know, cinnamon spiced meatballs with parsley. You’ve got some, you know, basic lentils with maybe some garlic and bay leaf. And then you can add in something like that mashed winter squash. So you can do

Ginny Mahar (24:59.911)

something like tarragon is really nice with that. Garlic and sage would go really well with that Mediterranean menu. You could do some sheet pan roasted veggies with balsamic vinegar oil, just some Italian herbs, roast those up and then have some simple base components, depending on the time of year, maybe some pre-washed greens. I love to get ahead of Romaine.

and just wash those leaves, keep them whole so that I can use that for maybe a lettuce wrap, maybe I chop it up for a quick salad in the summertime. In the winter, I like to get those big…

like a thing of protein greens or power greens or, you know, like the mixed hearty greens that I can wilt. Like we talked about that warm lentil salad with chicken. Wilting greens are really nice in the colder months. you know, and then a sauce or two, a vinaigrette, a simple vinaigrette. There’s one in the book that’s got Nigella seed in it, which is specifically, you know, supportive to the thyroid and can really help with things like, you know, thyroid implants.

Inna (25:47.15)

Mm-hmm.

Inna (26:06.51)

you

Ginny Mahar (26:12.197)

inflammation and autoimmunity. Having like a simple vinaigrette on hand and maybe a green sauce like a parsley, garlic, olive oil that you could drizzle on something, a wrap. Maybe you’ve got some grain-free tortillas. You can put those elements in there and put your, you know, a drizzle of your green sauce on there. Put some of those fresh greens in and boom, you’ve got five, six, seven different meals you can throw together with those elements.

Inna (26:35.958)

Yeah.

Ginny Mahar (26:42.117)

So I think that’s like one of the best minimal time investment ways to like just keep those whole food meals on hand without having to spend too much time cooking or even having to cook every day. All those things.

keep pretty well in the fridge and can be reheated. Like you said, some people don’t like leftovers. And then of course, for people who are histamine sensitive, which can be a factor in this community, right? You know, we’ve got to work around that as well. So in that case, we’re thinking more about what can we prep ahead of time so that cooking it up quickly.

it takes very little time. So bringing home the broccoli, the onions, the peppers, depending on of course your dietary needs, right?

having that stuff washed, chopped, and ready to cook up so that you can whip that up quickly for a meal. Put some olive oil in a skillet, saute those veggies, throw in some kind of protein addition on the side, and you’ve got a meal. Something like breakfast, could have those wilting greens handy and ready to go. Maybe you like…

Inna (28:02.819)

Thank

Ginny Mahar (28:04.097)

kale or chard or something like that. You’ve got it washed, chopped and ready to go. In the morning you wake up, you throw some greens in a skillet, you wilt those down. I like to add a little bit of minced shallot when I’m doing that for flavor, a little salt, pepper, a little olive oil, crack in a couple eggs and you’ve got a scrambled eggs and greens that you can throw into that like grain-free tortilla or some kind of wrapper or just have on its own. Slice quickly

Inna (28:31.31)

I love that.

Ginny Mahar (28:34.261)

to keep it really simple, add some sliced avocado and I was gonna say sauerkraut, but that’s not histamine friendly. there’s like all those little nuances and personalizations that I…

Inna (28:42.67)

Thank you.

Ginny Mahar (28:51.733)

I do help people with individually on more of a one-on-one basis. Like, okay, let’s troubleshoot this and come up with some things that work for you, for your lifestyle, for your specific needs, because we all have those unique.

Inna (29:06.05)

We all have that. Yeah, no, but it’s so helpful to see some quick meals people can make, how they can prep and then how they can just adjust it based on their needs versus it’s, you know, certain vegetables or histamines or things like that. Now, what about in terms of freezing? How do you feel about freezing? So if someone maybe makes a meal and maybe they have a histamine issue and they don’t want to leave it in the fridge.

Do you like freezing it so that then you can defrost it later? Or do you like freezing some of the ingredients so then be able to defrost it to use later? Because I know there’s a lot of different opinions on that. So curious the chef’s opinion on this.

Ginny Mahar (29:41.699)

Yeah, yes. know, some of some of my community members have found with histamine issues have found that they’re able to say, tolerate something like bone broth better if they first of all make it in an instant pot so that the cooking time is lower. That’s one thing that can kind of build histamine is like the long cooking times and then

also quickly cooling it and freezing it so that it’s not like sitting in that refrigerated temperature zone that you know where the histamines can tend to build. So it depends on on the individual of course with things like that. But in general for most people who you know don’t have histamine issues the freezer is our best friend. You know keeping some of those meals on hand, stockpiling things, squirreling them away. I always say that’s like money in the bank.

You know, I…

I have my own food sensitivities. Luckily for me, histamines aren’t one of them and I lean on my freezer very much for all kinds of things. know, a lot of the things we talked about in like that simple meal prep staples menu, the shredded chicken, the meatballs, even the lentils freeze really well. Soups freeze really well. Whenever I make a pot of soup or my teenage son really loves chili. So that always feels like, okay,

you know, you’re always looking for me, I’m like, what are the family friendly meals, because I don’t want to make two dinners, you know, if I make something like that, a chili or a soup, I almost always try to make a big batch so that we can eat it for dinner. I’ve got some soup in the fridge for that I can heat up for lunches. I had soup for breakfast this morning, some leftover soup. And then I can put at least a couple containers in our

Ginny Mahar (31:36.875)

chest freezer as well. So on the days when I’m too busy to cook or somebody gets sick or I’m not feeling well or we’ve been skiing all day or whatever it is, we can come home and have a whole food home cooked meal ready to go that we can just reheat. Even things like sauces, those green sauces. Every summer I make big batches of dairy free pesto and I use it like a silicone, it’s actually a silicone baby food mold and I’ll, you know, do little individual

like pucks of pesto, and then come wintertime, you can just thaw that out and toss it with veggies, with chicken, with gluten-free pasta or whatever. So there’s lots of ways we can use the freezer as a tool, yeah.

Inna (32:19.17)

Yeah, I love that.

Inna (32:24.706)

That’s great. That’s great. Now, what about the type of cooking? So if we have, you know, say grilling versus boiling versus baking versus roasting, pan frying, either there’s a lot of talk about the different methods and what is better. So from your perspective as a chef, but also someone who specializes in thyroid eating, is there a method that is the healthiest for thyroid? Would you say?

Ginny Mahar (32:55.649)

Hmm, mean, yeah, there are considerations around that, right? Especially with things like grilling and like caramelizing foods where they call that ages, advanced glycation products, where, you know, it’s like pretty easy to remember, right? Because ages can kind of lead to like aging, sort of like oxidation in the body. This is why antioxidants help us, right? So yeah, I mean, you know,

One of my main missions, you know, is really I, when I went through my own journey, I mean, I’m still on this journey, right? But when I was going through like the early part of my journey and having to adapt to a whole new way of thinking about food and utilizing food and cooking food, it was such a huge paradigm shift for me to go from just like, how do I want this to taste?

know how is this gonna like impress people, what do I want to eat right now, what sounds really good and how can I create that and make it crispy, salty, sweet, crunchy, now it’s how am I gonna feel after I eat this and

I also want that food to be delicious, exciting, celebratory, colorful, stuff I would happily serve to my guests regardless of their food sensitivities, stuff that my family’s going to want to eat. So, you know, I definitely have that lens of like, how can we take these whole food anti-inflammatory ingredients and make them really, really delicious? And sometimes, you know, I think

My approach, I try to be very non-dogmatic and like let’s be aware of all these things like ages in grilled food and things like that and just be aware of them so that we can think about mixing up our cooking methods. So things like steaming, poaching, know, like lightly cooking our vegetables, steaming our broccoli and things like that too. Well, with thyroid issues, we’re thinking about

Ginny Mahar (35:03.515)

reducing or eliminating any goitrogenic compounds, eating things like cruciferous vegetables cooked, that’s going to help with that. Cooking foods also makes them more digestible, but also if we’re not cooking them to death, it can also help maintain some of the nutrients. So it really depends, but I think to approach it with

awareness about the healthfulness of different cooking methods and going for a healthy mix. If someone said, I can only have poached and steamed and boiled food, I mean…

I can’t make a Christmas dinner doing, you know what I mean? We gotta have some balance, right? So that’s sort of like my sort of, I guess, approach or philosophy on that is having a healthy mix and choosing those healthier cooking methods most of the time, but also utilizing some of those chef tricks to add flavor, to add texture, to make it exciting and appealing.

Inna (35:51.736)

Yeah.

Inna (36:16.864)

Yeah, yeah. Now, what about actual cooking tools? Because one of the questions that people ask all the time is what pans should I use? And there’s a lot of stuff online. And I think many people understand that a lot of the nonstick traditional pans are going to have the toxic coating that actually acts as a goitrogen and is not good for so many other reasons for our health. So what are some of the pans that you like? Because, you know, even though we don’t want to use those

synthetic non-stick, also don’t necessarily want food to stick to everything. And there’s some green kind of options out there, but those are also, I find confusing because you read one thing and it says, this is great. And the other is like, no, there’s secret chemicals still in there. They just don’t disclose them. So what do you like?

Ginny Mahar (37:05.654)

Yes, yeah, the non-toxic cooking equipment is one of, think, the best investments we can make. I think it intimidates people, but it’s like you do it once and then it’s done, at least for a while, right, until that tool expires. As far as pots and pans go, I really like to use a combination, a mixture, right? So mostly I cook on stainless steel.

there is a way to cook on stainless steel in a way that’s more nonstick. you heat the pan first, you heat up the molecules of the pan, right? It changes the chemical structure of that to

get those molecules moving faster and maybe creating a firmer surface, then you add your oil as a lubricating layer, and then you put your scallops in or whatever to caramelize and sear, and ideally they’re not sticking horribly to the pan. You can do similar in cast iron.

but cast iron can be tricky because you don’t really wanna cook acids in cast iron. A lot of thyroid patients enjoy cooking on cast iron because we get a little bit of added iron from that and anemia can be common for some people in this community.

But that is one kind of trick with cast iron is cooking with acidic ingredients will react with a cast iron pan. So you don’t wanna be adding like lemon juice or tomatoes or vinegars in a cast iron skillet or you’ll get this like metallic reaction that will flavor the food.

Ginny Mahar (38:56.015)

So for that, like one kind of nice sort of middle ground there is enameled cast iron like the LaCruzette, that sort of pan. Those are pretty high heat friendly. They’re non-toxic. You get that nice heat conductivity of the cast iron core. But

they’re not reactive the way cooking directly on like cast iron surface is. The enameled cast iron like cancels out that reactivity. And then I do keep some nonstick skillets on hand that are ceramic coated. And to the best of my knowledge, to this point, it is one of the like better options.

you you wonder like, well, what are we going to find out a year from now or five years from now about ceramic coated? And I will say it is not like a Teflon pan. They aren’t quite that nonstick.

but they are supposed to be one of like the lowest tox options available. And when you’re cooking something like an omelet, you know, having a nonstick pan can be a really nice thing. I think with all nonstick, it’s always a good idea. If you have like a nonstick omelet pan, maybe that, you know, you’re like, just, can’t do my eggs. I can’t be getting the, you know, Brillo pad, the steel wool out every time I scramble eggs in my cast iron.

skillet right is the guideline is really to not cook with high heat on those but ultimately I do think yeah phasing out those the more like nonstick coated is is kind of the best

Ginny Mahar (40:47.361)

the best thing as far as thyroid friendly cookware goes. And then of our utensils, right? We want to be thinking about get trading out our plastic utensils for things like wood.

Inna (40:47.554)

Mm-hmm. Got it.

Ginny Mahar (41:01.379)

I do also use some silicone utensils are typically very high heat friendly. And again, it’s like, we gotta always keep our ear to the ground on this. What are we gonna hear five or 10 years from now? But I would say like unfinished wood. That’s another thing I see that concerns me a lot with cookware is everything is coded, including these like wood utensils. So just get like the basic like the.

Inna (41:24.398)

that is such a good point. I never thought of that because they’re shiny, a lot of them.

Ginny Mahar (41:30.435)

Yes, you just want like the basic like a bit I have a lot of like bamboo, you know, wooden spatulas, things like that that are just basic non toxic cookware. I also do have like I said some silicone and there’s a spatula I love that is a they call it XO glass.

that’s very, very high heat friendly and it’s like, they call it like a fish spatula. It’s got a little angle and it’s great for flipping. So I do use like, again, a mixture, right? But yeah, I think one of the big things is avoiding those plastic utensils. And that also goes for our food storage. So just invest in a set of Pyrex.

food storage containers. The lids don’t matter quite so much because typically the food isn’t going to be touching the lid. So we don’t have to get you know

too stressed out about the lids per se, but I think as far as the containers go, using something Pyrex or Ceramic. And I really like Pyrex because for a lot of us who do rely on and like having those leftovers in the fridge to make thyroid friendly eating doable on like a regular two or three meals a day basis, right? You want to be able to see what’s in all those containers in the fridge. And when we put it in something like Ceramic where you

can’t see what’s inside. I don’t know about you, but a day or two later, I’m like, I have no idea what’s in there. I don’t remember. That was, what did I eat for lunch or what did I make for dinner two days ago? I have no idea. So I really like Pyrex for that as just like, this is a thyroid friendly staple tool in your kitchen. Yeah. Yeah.

Inna (43:01.08)

Forget about it.

Inna (43:20.874)

Now what about cutting boards? Because, you know, they’ve wood, plastic I think most people realize that we want to try to avoid, but then there’s all these other, there’s bamboo, there’s so many different materials. Is there one that you like? Because I know with wood also there’s a potential of bacteria, you know, once it gets cut. But you tell me, because I’m not the expert there.

Ginny Mahar (43:42.263)

Yeah, I mean, as far as like low tox cookware goes, what I find is most recommended is still wood. There are also things like, it’s almost like a compressed paper. So it’s like a wood product, but it’s not a plastic cutting board. I’m blanking on the name of the material, but.

Inna (43:50.669)

Okay.

Ginny Mahar (44:07.331)

I have a couple of them made by, I want to say it’s like Epicurean, but I use things like that or wood. That’s kind of what I, what I try to stick to. I mean, if you really were worried about something like bacteria from a wood cutting surface, I mean, I don’t know. We’ve been using wood cutting boards for like centuries, you know, keep it clean, wash it. But

If you really were concerned about that, I mean, there’s glass, but that’s gonna be really hard on your knives. So, and really what they recommend for the life of your knives is wood. Yeah, that’s gonna be easiest on the blade.

Inna (44:51.502)

Yeah, can you put a wood cutting board in the dishwasher? Can you put wood in general in a dishwasher?

Ginny Mahar (44:57.141)

I wouldn’t know. Yeah, we wash all our wood by hand. Yeah. And then, you you want to oil it as well. Someone was asked, someone DMed me the other day and they were like, what do you put on your cutting boards? And I was like, honestly, usually just, you know, every couple of months, just wipe it down with something like olive oil. But there’s different products. You can buy fractionated coconut oil and different oils and things for wood. But yeah, I just.

Inna (45:22.103)

Yeah.

Ginny Mahar (45:26.628)

olive oil is something I always have on hand, so that works too.

Inna (45:31.02)

Yeah, that’s great. That’s great. Now, Jenny, tell us more about when the book comes out, how people can pre-order it, because I know all of this information is in it and just having recipes and meal plans and, you know, ways that we can make eating for thyroid easier. Cause again, people know what to do, but it’s different than actually doing it. We need that implementation.

Ginny Mahar (45:57.04)

Yes, yeah. So thank you, you know, it’s the Thyroid 30 Cookbook.

So this is it’s got a hundred of my best recipes. I have been cooking out of this nonstop. I actually got this isn’t available until February 3rd. That’s when it officially drops, but it’s available for preorder now. But I got the advanced copies, so I have been cooking out of this so much. And yeah, I’ll show you if you’re on YouTube, you can see a couple pictures here. We just made this.

Inna (46:29.91)

Gosh, it looks so delicious. for anyone who is listening and not watching, mean, there’s like a beautiful whole chicken with what looks like lots of veggies around it and skewers and almost looks like a lasagna. What’s at the top?

Ginny Mahar (46:44.267)

Okay, this is a shepherd’s pie. I’ll try to zoom in there. We just had this for dinner the other night. My son loves shepherd’s pie. that’s gluten and dairy free shepherd’s pie. This one down here is a broccoli cheese soup that’s actually dairy free. So what gives it that orange color is like a lot of different vegetables and things, but you use nutritional yeast to add that cheesy flavor. And you sprinkle the top with bacon.

Inna (46:47.084)

Ginny Mahar (47:13.475)

It’s actually kind of surprising how much it tastes like broccoli cheddar soup. But yeah, lots of delicious recipes. There’s three 30 day meal plans, as I mentioned, gluten free, dairy free, paleo and AIP just to meet people where they’re at and if it’s a helpful tool. And then of course, thyroid 30. This is a system that I developed in 2017 to really help people answer the how, how do I do this? Right, because it isn’t just about food. It’s

it’s a whole food whole health lifestyle that’s going to help us overcome a lot of the residual symptoms that thyroid medication leaves behind for many of us. It’s going to help us feel our best, it’s going to help restore our energy, it’s going to help us not feel so compromised by this chronic illness.

Right? So that thyroid 30 system is outlined in the book there. It’s a like 30 day program that people can use as a springboard, a reset. It’s not a quick fix, right? But it’s I want to get started or wow, I’ve gotten off track or I’m just working on this on adopting and building on this lifestyle brick by brick, piece by piece.

so that I can get to a place where I have this lifestyle that really supports me, that I love and want to do every day for the way it makes me feel and it loves me back. So that is what Thyroid 30 is. But as I mentioned, it’s available for pre-order.

Oops, I looked like I froze there for a second. It’s available for pre-order now. And I want to mention, because we talked about this so much on the show, I do have a pre-order bonus available if you order before February 3rd. It’s a simple meal prep staple recipe guide and workshop. So if you order before February 3rd, you get that for free as just a

Ginny Mahar (49:15.875)

special pre-order bonus gift. So that’s an awesome resource. the first 100 pre-orders are entered to win an 18-piece Pyrex food storage set. lots of what we talked about today, a lot of the recipes, that Mediterranean menu with different options for what seasonings could I use for.

Inna (49:29.743)

Perfect, we can all use that.

Ginny Mahar (49:40.363)

If I wanted to take these staples and make an Asian inspired menu or a Latin inspired menu or, know, and how do I put these staples together? How do I make this doable? So all that’s in there.

Inna (49:51.21)

Amazing. And where can people pre-order?

Ginny Mahar (49:54.145)

So you can go, you can learn about that at hypothyroidchef.com slash cookbook.

Inna (50:00.28)

amazing and we’ll put everything in the show notes. so for everyone who is listening in real time, go ahead and pur the book. There’s so many things in it. There’s going to be so helpful for you. And then if you’re listening after February 3rd, then it’s going to be available. Every books are sold, right? Great. And Jenny, for those who want to connect with you to, get to know you better to, you know, get.

Ginny Mahar (50:17.803)

Yes, yep, yeah.

Inna (50:26.178)

more help on other things, to help them implement things more, where can they find you and how can they contact you?

Ginny Mahar (50:33.463)

Yeah, so I’m on socials at Hypothyroid Chef. I’m most active on Instagram and YouTube, so you can always connect with me there. But probably the best place to really like.

get connected with me, learn more about the cookbook and what I have to offer is at hypothyroidchef.com. So I’ve got a thyroid friendly recipe blog there with tons of free recipes and other support resources. I also have a thyroid friendly grocery guide that’s a free download that people can grab there or they can get it at hypothyroidchef.com slash grocery. It’s got over 130 delicious, colorful, nutrient dense foods to choose from.

I love it because it’s such a, it’s a great place to start because I say it’s an imagination tool, right? We can look at this one page list and start thinking about like, what can I start making meals out of? What are some of my favorite ingredients on this list that I could maybe come up with a, you know, a saute or a stir fry or a hash or a soup or, you know, just start getting our wheels turning about what this looks like. So yeah.

Inna (51:44.366)

Well, thank you so much for being here and for all of this information. Cooking is something that so many of us really need help with. you know, we just, we all need this information. So thank you, thank you, thank you. I’m excited for your book and I’m excited to stay connected. Of course. We’ll talk soon.

Ginny Mahar (52:02.699)

Aw, thanks so much for having me, Ina. It’s been a pleasure.