Last Updated on July 23, 2025 by Carrie Korem, FNTP
Your diet plays a huge part in Graves’ and in thyroid disease in general. Here’s a collection of 30 of my most popular Graves’ recipes over the last 16 years!
Here’s a quick list of foods to eat and the ones to avoid if you have Graves’:
1. Lots of Vegetables – While there’s no limit to your vegetable consumption, I do recommend that most of the vegetables you consume are cooked in healthy fats such as butter, ghee or coconut oil. Since most people with Graves’ disease also have digestion issues, cooking the vegetables instead of eating them raw helps make digestion easier.
If your fT4 is elevated, then one group of vegetables to eat raw is goitrogenic vegetables. Goitrogens can inhibit the uptake of iodine into the thyroid and lower thyroid hormones, so eating raw goitrogenic foods if fT4 is elevated can help lower your thyroid hormones.
Here’s a quick list of goitrogenic vegetables for you:
Bok Choy
Broccoli
Brussels sprouts
Cabbage
Cassava
Cauliflower
Collard Greens
Kale
Millet
Mustard Greens
Rapeseed (aka Canola)
Rutabagas
Spinach
Turnips
2. Pastured Butter and Animal Fats – Butter contains omega-3s and vitamin A, which are all crucial for proper thyroid function and immune support.
Animal fats such as ghee, lard, tallow and duck fat contain healthy cholesterol (you need cholesterol for hormone production and a healthy immune system), vitamins A, D, E and K, and omegas which are all needed for a healthy body.
I recommend eating about 2-3 teaspoons of animal fat at each meal. Cooking vegetables and meats in butter is an easy way to get this nutrient-dense fat in your diet.
If you’ve been using mostly avocado oil and olive oil, I recommend putting those on the shelf right now and really leaning into animal fats. My clients see a huge improvement in symptoms when they make this switch!
3. Pastured Meats – Meats such as beef, chicken, turkey, game, and organ meats contain vital nutrients such as Vitamin A, folate, Riboflavin, B6, B12, Magnesium, and zinc, which are all important to properly support the immune system.
Remember – Graves’ is an immune system issue that can affect the thyroid. This is why it’s important to eat to support the immune system.
4. Meat Stock – Meat stock, rather than bone broth, is a good food to be consuming during the early stages of healing the gut and immune system.
Meat stock is especially rich in gelatin and free amino acids like proline and glycine. These amino acids, along with the gelatinous protein from the meat and connective tissue, are particularly beneficial in healing the connective tissue in the lining of the gut.
Bone broth is different from meat stock because it’s cooked longer and contains higher amounts of various amino acids. I recommend only drinking meat stock for the first 4-6 months and then switching to bone broth.
Here’s some independent testing done on both meat stock and bone broth, and you can see the results here and read more about the differences between the two. For a simple meat stock recipe, click here.
5. Organic, Pastured Eggs – Eggs contain a wealth of nutrients including selenium, omega 3’s, vitamin A, D, E and K, choline and healthy cholesterol.
I realize that most elimination diets restrict the consumption of eggs, but unless someone has a documented egg allergy, pastured eggs can often be an important part of a thyroid and immune system healing diet.
If you’ve had testing done and have an intolerance to eggs, I suggest just giving the egg yolks a try. Most people actually react to the white and not the yolk.
6. Cultured and/or Raw Dairy – Dairy is another food that has gotten a bad reputation in recent years. Of course, we always want to stay away from factory-farmed and processed dairy, but cultured and/or raw dairy can be a healthy part of a thyroid-healing diet. These foods are rich in omega-3, Vitamin A, Vitamin D, Magnesium and B Vitamins.
Here are some examples of cultured and/or raw dairy:
Kefir
Organic, whole, plain yogurt
Cultered, organic butter
Cultured sour cream (Walaby is a great brand!)
Raw milk (search here for local sources)
Raw cheese
Mascarpone
Creme Fraiche
Of course, if you have a documented allergy to dairy, then avoid it’s best to avoid it.
7. Fermented Vegetables – Just 1 tablespoon of fermented vegetables such as sauerkraut contains millions of probiotics. It’s a wonderful food to add to each meal to help build up healthy flora in the gut. You can make sauerkraut at home (it’s actually very easy!), or purchase at your local health food store. A good one to get started with is the dill pickle kraut from Farmhouse Culture. This is great food for the kids to eat as well!
8. Good unprocessed salt, such as Grey Celtic sea salt. When the body is hyperthyroid, it will burn through a lot of minerals, so consuming mineral-rich Celtic sea salt throughout the day is a great way to bring in additional minerals into your diet.
9. Fruit is a good option, but it’s best to eat it in moderation and always at the end of a meal. When the body is in a hyperthyroid state, there is often blood sugar imbalance, so eating fruits at the end of a meal can help keep blood sugar more stable.
If you have elevated glucose levels, then eating just berries while you work to get your blood sugar back into balance can be a great idea.
10. Gluten-Free Soaked Nuts, Seeds, Legumes and Lentils – All of these foods are good options, but they do need to be properly prepared (aka soaking, spouting, fermenting, etc.).
For a much deeper dive into the foods to eat and avoid when you have Graves’, tap here.
Here are 30 of my most popular Graves’ disease Recipes:
Breakfast/Brunch
Blueberry Streusel Muffin Recipe (Grain-Free)
Sausage Hash with Carrots (and and egg on top if you’d like!)
Chocolate Cheesecake Protein Shake
Lunch/Dinner
Lemon Chicken and Vegetable Soup
Chicken Alfredo Spaghetti Squash
Salisbury Steak 
Easy Grain-Free Pizza 
Desserts/Beverages
Homemade Coffee Creamer (6 different recipes!)
The BEST Gluten-Free and Egg-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Buttercream
Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream
Apple, Cherry and Blueberry Crisp
If you’d like to learn some first steps you can take to help support your thyroid, check out my class, “5 Keys to Thyroid Hormone Balance”. It’s just 45 minutes and I promise you’ll learn something new!
