Spicy Tofu, Mushrooms and Tomato Brown Rice Bowl

From Everyday With Rachel Ray

It says it serves four, but it was SOOO yummy my husband and I ate it all! Note I substituted chinese noodles for brown rice and plan to try it over quinoa also in the near future.

Enjoy, so easy!

INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 cups long-grain brown rice, rinsed

1/4 cup vegetable oil

3 cloves garlic, sliced

2 scallions, cut into 1-inch pieces, white and green parts separated

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper (use less if you like less spicy)

8 ounces mushrooms, sliced

Salt and black pepper

One 14-ounce container firm tofu, cut into 1-inch cubes

1/2 pint grape tomatoes, halved lengthwise

2 tablespoons oyster sauce

DIRECTIONS:
In a medium saucepan, combine the rice and 2 1/4 cups water over medium-low heat. Cover and cook until the water is absorbed, 40 to 45 minutes. Fluff with a fork.

Meanwhile, in a large nonstick skillet, heat 2 tablespoons oil over medium-high heat. Add the garlic, scallion whites and crushed red pepper and stir until fragrant. Add the mushrooms and season with salt and black pepper. Cook until the mushroom liquid evaporates, about 3 minutes. Transfer the mixture to a plate.

Add the remaining 2 tablespoons oil and the tofu to the pan and cook until golden on one side, then toss to brown throughout, about 3 minutes. Push the tofu to the side of the pan and add the tomatoes and oyster sauce. Cook until the tomatoes begin to soften, about 1 minute. Return the mushrooms to the pan and stir in the scallion greens. Serve with the rice

New research on Synthroid

Thank you to Jacob Schor, ND, FABNO for this enlightening article:
As found January 10, 2011 on denvernaturopathic.com

Most doctors have long advised their patients who take thyroid replacement hormone to take it first thing in the morning without food. It turns out that this is a mistake, or at least seems to be a mistake. A December 2010 paper suggests taking it before bed is more effective.
A number of years ago N. Bolk and colleagues at the Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, noticed several patients who appeared to respond better to thyroid hormone administered at night. They conducted a small pilot study in which they carefully tested thyroid blood values in 12 women who were taking their thyroid in the morning and then switched them to nighttime dosing for two months prior to retesting. Their conclusion, published in 2007, “l-thyroxine [T4] taken at bedtime by patients with primary hypothyroidism is associated with higher thyroid hormone concentrations and lower TSH concentrations compared to the same l-thyroxine dose taken in the morning.” [1]

No one believes little pilot studies, especially ones that rock accepted doctrine like this, so they ran a large double blinded placebo controlled crossover study. From April 2007 to November 2008, they enrolled 105 consecutive patients with primary hypothyroidism. For 6 months patients took a different pill morning and evening, one of which was placebo. After 3 months, the patients witched which pill they took in the morning. Results of this larger study were published in the December 2010 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. Data from ninety of the patients who completed the trial were analyzed. Taking thyroid at night decreased TSH level by 1.25 mIU/L, increased free T4 level by 0.07 ng/dL and increased total T3 by 6.5 ng/dL. [2] Night time dosing seems to be clearly superior. So much so that I am wondering from where this idea of morning dosing originated. No doubt someone will do the necessary homework and tell us the answer in the near future.
There is a potential problem with this. If your TSH is in the 3-5.0 mIU/L range, it should not be a problem. If you have been taking thyroid medication in the morning, and your TSH is in our target range of between 1 and 2 mIU/L and you were to switch to evening dosing, you might need to decrease the amount of medicine you take.
This information should prompt an editorial on our easy assumption that standard medicine is evidence based. Suffice to say, much of what we assume to be based on scientific evidence, is still, more often than not, based on habit, tradition, circumstance and guesswork.

References:

[1] Bolk N, Visser TJ, Kalsbeek A, van Domburg RT, Berghout A. Effects of evening vs morning thyroxine ingestion on serum thyroid hormone profiles in hypothyroid patients. Clin Endocrinol (Oxf). 2007 Jan;66(1):43-8.

[2] Bolk N, Visser TJ, Nijman J, Jongste IJ, Tijssen JG, Berghout A. Effects of evening vs morning levothyroxine intake: a randomized double-blin
d crossover trial. Arch Intern Med. 2010 Dec 13;170(22):1996-2003.

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