Nut and Seed Mix

I am all about baby steps. Simple switches in the food we eat everyday so that as you move through ypour daily routine, you automatically build dense nutrition into the food you consume. Not a diet overhaul, not an overwhelming change everything situation but a simple switcheroo.

One of my recommendations for decreasing the hidden sugar in your diet and to boost the nutrition you eat daily is to JUST EAT WHOLE FOODS!

Ditching cookies, muffins, cakes, candy and energy bars is a good place to start.

I advise many of my clients to create a mix of health promoting dark chocolate drops, whole nuts and seeds to keep in the refrigerator and to turn to when they are looking for a snack.

Dark chocolate is low in sugar and rich in antioxidants, iron and the relaxation mineral magnesium. Dark chocolate has also been shown to boost brain serotonin levels in clinical trail...we really do feel happier when we eat chocolate!

Whole nuts and seeds provide our bodies with heart healthy fats, vitamin E which helps to reduce hot flashes and minerals such as selenium and magnesium which support a healthy thyroid gland and are required by the body as a cofactor for a myriad of small biochemical reactions.

Sugar is removed from the diet when we switch to eating these foods raw, whole and individually rather than smooshed together in a processed, grain based bar by SUGAR!

Ingredients

Find a medium sized recycled jar to hold your mix.
Add Brazil nuts...selenium ++, macadamia nuts, heart and brain healthy walnuts, vitamin E rich almonds, Zinc rich raw pumpkin seeds, pecans, pistachios and sunflower seeds.
Add organic, dark chocolate chips or chunks
For me the dark chocolate feels like a treat or celebration, it elevates a mundane nut mix to something special. It nurtures me.
Add goji berries for vitamin C or sugar free cranberries for a burst of fruitiness.

Keep refrigerated so that the healthy fats in the nuts do not go rancid and the jar is not on the counter as a permanent temptation 

Ditch the Oreo cookie and reach for a handful of your mix when your energy is low or pack into a small container to carry with you for when you have a busy day.

Nutrition is the first line of self- care baby ❤️

Blueberry and Flax Breakfast Muffins

So you are feeling like you are losing control of your body in midlife and the biggest culprit is your uncomfortable and out of control hot flashes and night sweats.

You keep having embarrassing moments during the day where you turn hot and beet red with perspiration dripping from your top lip and your just have to tear off the layers, and you are sick and tired of waking in the night with your sheets drenched and heart racing from a night sweat. It is draining and you feel exhausted and have lost trust in your own body.

Hot sweats and night sweats are the most recognized symptom of peri-menopause and are an indicator that your estrogen levels are beginning to fall as your ovaries move into a resting stage. You are moving towards the later stage of your peri-menopausal experience and other glands such as the adrenal glands will pick up the load and micro dose your body with estrogen in your post menopausal stage.

You need this trickle flow of hormone as estrogen is:
1. Bone protective
2. Brain health protective
3. Heart health protective
4. Prevents vaginal dryness and atrophy.

When our ovaries rest we need our adrenals to kick-in and take over this role.

Not all peri-menopauses are the same and we hear and read a lot about how women in the Western world experience a more symptomatic and medicated journey towards the hormonal balance of menopause.

I have a theory: Modern life is just so stressful and we are all so exhausted and run ragged that our adrenal glands just do not have the capacity to pick up where our ovaries have left off.

So where does that leave the midlife woman who wants to support her very best health?

Well there are are foods that help to boost estrogen levels in the body and alleviate symptoms of hot flashes and night sweats by introducing phyto-estrogen into our diet.
Phytoestrogens are plant-based, estrogen-mimics which circulate in the body and ‘trick’ the body into thinking that the trickle flow of estrogen is flowing and thus reduce symptoms of estrogen deficiency such as hot flashes and night sweats. Below is a list of foods that are rich in phytoestrogens and which you should load into your daily meal plan if you are waking hot and sweaty at night or hiding in the washrooms pulling a damp t-shirt away from your sweaty skin waiting for a hot flash to pass.

If you are curious to know more about what is happening to you body if you are experiencing hot flashes you can click here to join my private Facebook Group The Nourished Midlife Woman and watch a Facebook live training on just this topic.

And… so here is a fabulous place to start!

Breakfast muffins that are rich in ground flax and anti-oxidant rich blueberries that begin to bring in the foods that mimic estrogen in the body and calm those unpredictable sweats down.

I substituted the sugar in this muffin recipe for MONK FRUIT sweetener, a sugar substitute that does not raise blood sugar levels or spike insulin in the body. These muffins are sweet but sugar free and there is not the aftertaste that you sometimes get with the sugar substitute stevia. This is the brand I can buy easily in stores in Canada.

I made these muffins on a Covid 19 quarantine day when I could not get hold of plain flour so I played with the recipe and added the same quantity of a healthy pancake mix I had in the cupboard and the end of a bag of gluten free buckwheat flour. (This is why my muffins are so dark in the photo provided.) I also lazily added all of my ingredients into one bowl, but the quality of the muffins is much improved by adding the wet ingredients into the dry. My point here is that this is a very forgiving recipe so you can make it your own. Hello, my name is Louise, I am a food lover and very lazy cook!

Ingredients

113 g or 3/4 cup sugar

225g or 11/2 cups plain flour (spelt flour would be nice here or half and half plain flour and buckwheat flour)

2 heaping tbsp ground flax

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

rind of 1 lemon grated

pinch of sea salt

125g or 1 cup fresh or defrosted frozen blueberries

100g or 2/3 cup of coconut oil melted

1 cup live natural yoghurt

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 lemon juiced (optional)

Instructions

Heat the over to 200C 400 F or gas mark 6
Place 12 muffin cases in a muffin tin ready to receive your muffin mixture.
Place all of the dry ingredients from the sugar through to the sea salt into a bowl.
Toss the blueberries through the dry ingredients.
In a separate bowl add the eggs, yoghurt and vanilla extract and whisk gently to combine.
Stir in the melted coconut oil taking care not to ‘cook’ the eggs with the warm oil.
Stir the ‘wet’ ingredients into the ‘dry’ ingredients and mix lightly to form a batter. Do not over mix.
Load the muffin batter into the muffin cases.
bake in the over for 15-20 minutes until the muffins are cooked through…a tooth pick pushed into the muffins will come out clean.
Enjoy warm with butter for a truly decadent treat.

If you are interested in more healthy breakfast options that will help you to start your day with nutrition so that you power through your morning with energy to spare, you can sign up to receive my FREE downloadable e-book Breakfast Essentials. Click here to get your copy.

Brain Protective Chocolate and Apricot Energy Balls

November is Alzheimers Awareness Month and a perfect time to focus on lifestyle and nutrition practices, recipes and information that empowers to support our optimal brain health.

You might wonder why eating to support brain health should be a priority in your thirties, forties fifties and sixties woman and in return I would ask you; 

Do you have stress?

Do you sleep like a baby for 8 hours a night?

Have you ever experienced brain fog, anxiety or the blues?

Be real with me here sister! All of the symptoms mentioned above are ones we talk about when we meet for coffee and joke about being part and parcel of the midlife female experience.

Between 2000 and 2017 death’s in North America due to Alzheimers increased by 145% and two thirds of all sufferers of Alzheimers are women.

For many years we have lived with the rationalization that because women live longer than men, they are by default going to make up a greater percentage of Alzheimers patients but as the women live on average only 5 years longer than men and the onset of Alzheimers from commencement to diagnosis averages 10 year…this math did not make sense.

Finally more research into women experience of Alzheimers is being carried out and there is currently an ongoing re-think around the female pathway into dementia as it differs significantly from that of men.

And, so, opinions are changing and science is learning that

1.     Womens’ brains may need more ‘protection’ than male brains, from stress and poor eating habits.

2.     That women with Alzheimers are not being detected under current testing regimes with tests designed by and for men. Women universally have greater verbal skills (shout out to the chat, the gossip, verbal connection and talkiness that defines the beauty of women!) and so pass verbal testing despite having early onset Alzheimers.     

3.     That women have more divergent thinking patterns than men and that this contributes to the unhealthy protein that lays down plaque in the brain as part of Alzheimers disease to be more widely spread throughout different centers of the brain.

4.     That moving through menopause pre-disposes a womans brain to dementia because of the loss of the neuro-protective properties of estrogen. Studies are not claiming causation for menopause and Alzheimers BUT that if you are predisposed to Alzheimers then menopause can act as a trigger.

All of this information brings us back to point one and the only message we really need to receive… Womens brains need more protection than mens from the onset of Alzheimers and dementia.

Easy to make in only 15 minutes, below is a recipe that will help you to balance your blood sugar levels and fuel your brain on a daily basis. Make a batch of 12 of these Chocolate, Apricot Energy Balls to keep in your refrigerator and know that when you reach for a snack, you are also deeply protecting your future cognitive function!

If brain health is your priority, you need to check out my recipe for Omega 3 Rich Sardine Pate. Click here for a recipe.

Brain Protective Chocolate, Apricot Energy Balls

Ingredients

                          11/2 cups unsulphured dried apricots

                          1 cup shredded coconut

                          1/4 cup cacao paste or organic cocoa powder

                          1tbsp coconut oil

                          zest of 1 orange

                          1/4tsp sea salt

Instructions

·      In a food processor pulse the dried apricots until they form a paste.

·      Pulse in the cacao paste or cocoa and orange zest to combine.

·      In a large bowl plug the shredded coconut, sea salt and spirulina and combine.

·      Add the apricot/chocolate paste and coconut oil and combine all ingredients with the hands.

·      Form into balls and roll in additional shredded coconut if desired.

Store in the refrigerator.