Beet Hummus

When we pass through peri-menopause we have two options of how we approach our health and the discombobulating symptoms that we are feeling from this natural hormonal change.

1. We can fall into a victim mindset and bypass the learning that comes for the experience by jumping straight onto the HRT train delaying our inevitable transition into peri-menopause or worse, suffering and complaining for up to 10 years because we buy into the story that this is what it means to be a woman…that we suffer from our own bodies and hormones. Not a happy place to be.

2. We can begin to take greater care of ourselves, to nourish ourselves deeply with dense nutrition and listen to our bodies and learn from our symptoms to discover exactly what our minds and bodies are needing during this time of hormonal change.

The joy of an empowered approach to peri-menopause is that the path is paved with delicious health promoting recipes that build health for the next chapter and supports our bodies as we metamorphosis into strong and vibrant women with energy, excitement and robust health striding into the next chapter.

If I had to pick one recipe that supports midlife health in a myriad of ways it would be this gorgeous scarlet bowl of Beet Hummus.

Beets are rich in betalains that support stage 2 of the detoxification process in the liver. Our livers are our greatest ally in managing fluctuating hormones as it deconjugates and binds excess hormone ready to leave the body.

The liver also needs a fibre rich diet to function effectively as the body wants to detox daily when we poop leaving us free of circulating hormones that cause our night-time sweats, daily hot flashes and weight gain.

Fibre is the midlife womans’ best friend helping her to balance hormones, protecting heart health and supporting digestive health.

Chickpeas are fibre rich and packed with the B group of vitamins for energy and plant-based protein.
Chickpeas and sesame seeds found in tahini also contain phytoestrogens that trickle feed our bodies a safe plant-based mimic for estrogen. This benign estrogen helps us to get our mojo back and feel like our juicy hormone is balanced in our bodies.

So much gorgeousness here. The colour, a burst of flavour and the dense nutrition supporting our midlife bodies.

Besides it’s gorgeous colour the secret beauty of this dish is that it only takes 10 minutes to make and sits in the fridge ready to add a nutrient dense, liver loving snack or lunch option to your day at any moment.

 Ingredients

3 medium/ 1 large beet
1½ cups (15-oz can) chickpeas, rinsed and drained
3 cloves garlic 
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp sea salt
½ lemon, juiced
¼ tsp ground cumin
1 tbsp tahini (optional)

Instructions

I have made this dish with both cooked and raw beets.
I have cooked beets in the oven with a little salt and pepper. I have thrown chunks of raw beet into the blender. I have bought a vacuum sealed pack of cooked beets from Costco. The hummus always tastes great.

Throw all of the ingredients into a blender and blend on high until the hummus is smooth and whipped.
Season to your taste.

Serve with gluten free crackers or chips.

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.