Even before this incidence was reported, I have already been making inquiries into the medical literature and to three researchers I know that have extensive knowledge of the effect of Brassica vegetables (raw and cooked) in humans to try to sort out "myth from reality" about the recommendations on various websites to not eat any raw Brassica vegetables due to possible suppression of thyroid function.
I am relying on the guidance from these 3 researchers (and those to whom they refer me for even more information) to try to come up with a "bottom line" recommendation regarding how much raw and fermented Brassica consumption is indeed both safe and/or beneficial that is based on evidence (in addition to taking into consideration, but by no means relying exclusively, on how someone's mother traditionally cooked and ate and felt in the "old country").
Stay tuned, but in the meantime, please don't eat 2-3 #'s of anything for months on end, raw or cooked. I remember the early hey-day of "soy is a wonder food" when I routinely was contacted by people trying to eat a pound of tofu a day or drink a liter of soy milk daily. Gosh, how boring, boring, boring let alone remembering that no population has a healthy dietary pattern of such rigidity and exclusion of so many other foods.
I'm sorry, I know it's not very "sexy", but I will predict that the bottom line will be variety, variety, variety of types, amounts, and ways of production (raw, cooked, fermented). As I said, stay tuned!
Where kale is still more than decoration on my plate but I have NEVER eaten 1# of kale (let alone 2-3#!), raw or cooked, on any one day in my life and nor would I ever professionally recommend doing so! :-)
Diana Dyer, MS, RD
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