Turkey Herb Breakfast Patties

When our hormones start to fluctuate at midlife, there are long term health implications for us as women, outside of our midlife experience of menopause and it’s sometimes uncomfortable symptoms.

Hormonal change is not a cause, but a risk factor for poor cardiovascular health, dementia and Alzheimers disease.

Estrogen holds a protective effect over both our metabolic health and the neurons of our brain. As estrogen depletes we are pushed, incrementally, towards insulin resistance; which has implications for our brain and cardiovascular health and experience a pruning of our neurons; which has implications for our brain health and would explain our brain futzes and short temper at midlife.

This can feel horrifying to learn and can cause us to feel overwhelmed and helpless. Many women DREAD menopause and our perception of the process of hormonal change impacts our symptoms with negativity resulting in stronger and more uncomfortable symptoms.

It’s good to take a deep breathe, step out of fear and get some perspective as, in reality, the gold standard for protecting both our brain health and our cardiovascular health as we age is still nutrition, reducing stress and exercise.

Regardless of being women and experiencing hormonal change at midlife, we have all the tools we need to protect ourselves from future health complications.

One of the most impactful ways we can support our health for the future is to take great care with our diet to balance our blood sugar levels on a daily basis. No more sugar roller-coaster with its energy buzzes and crashes, mood swings and exhaustion. Just calm, consistent energy throughout the day.

Believe it or not, this can be challenging.

1. We live in a terrain that is OVERLOADED with sugar in every product we buy. It takes effort and stepping outside of the Standard American Diet to break-up with sugar.

2. If we are addicted to cortisol, our stress hormone, we REALLY enjoy the sugar roller-coaster and it is hard to let it go. Scan your life for clues and notice where you are drawing stress in…overeating for a sugar-high, an argument for no reason or a coffee to get amped up.

3. Our microbiome can become unhealthily overgrown with yeasts due to years of excess sugar in our diet (hello those with a sweet tooth!) and when we suddenly cut back on sugar, we experience nasty flu-like symptoms and off-the-chain sugar cravings as Candida yeasts demand sugar from our brain.

One of the ways we can release the grip of sugar from our bodies is by eating a healthy, sugar-free breakfast, packed with protein, healthy fats and fibre on a daily basis. These make-ahead Turkey and Herb Patties will help you to follow through on your health goals at breakfast.

The protein found in turkey is rich in the amino acid, tryptophan. Tryptophan is a building block for both serotonin and melatonin in the body. When we eat turkey we are helping ourselves to keep our mood balanced and our sleep consistent.

By adding herbs and garlic to this recipe, not only do we pack in deliciousness and flavour, but we are supporting a healthy microbiome and a reduction in our sugar cravings. Garlic and sage are toxic to Candida, the unhealthy yeast that can take hold of our microbiome. As Candida dies off, you may feel headachy and low in energy but, balance is being created in your microbiome for healthy microbes, that help you to metabolize excess estrogen from the body and will bring a reduction in menopausal symptoms.

By eating these patties with eggs and vegetables in the morning, you are increasing the amount of protein you ingest at the beginning of the day. Breakfast is the most important meal for balancing blood sugar levels and climbing off that roller-coaster.

When you ditch the unhealthy, but well advertised, box cereal breakfast, the muffins and the doughnuts, you give your brain and your body the steady energy it needs to get through your morning

Additional protein with your meals at midlife is also supportive of tissue health and with exercise, such as lifting weights, prevents muscle wasting as we age. When we maintain muscle in our glutes, thighs and hips, we are protecting our mobility and also our continence!

Make and cook these patties ahead and store them in a sealed container in the refrigerator for a week to make protein at breakfast a breeze!

Ingredients

1lb ground organic turkey thigh
2 tbsp chopped fresh sage or 1 tbsp dried sage (use fresh sage if you can, it’s delicious!)
3 green onions finely chopped
1 bunch parsley finely chopped
1 clove garlic minced
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp ground pepper

Instructions

Put all of the ingredients in a large bowl and combine using your hands
Go lightly and try not to overwork
Preheat the oven to 350F 175C
Line a large baking tray with parchment
Take a table spoon of the mix at a time and form a patty in your hands
Place the patties on the baking tray and bake for 30 minutes until cooked through
Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator to reheat at breakfast
Patties will keep for a week in the refrigerator and can be frozen for up to 3 months

Hemp Milk

When the cost of living is increasing and you want to stay committed to putting nutritious food inside your body, it is worthwhile setting time aside to make some ingredients from scratch.

Yes, I know that we are all time pressed and busy, but this little homemade milk hack takes only 10 minutes, when you have a high speed blender. I also know that this 10 minutes will save you money and that this 10 minutes will build self-trust as you let your body know you are taking full responsibility for getting nutrient dense foods into your daily routine.

Many of the women I work with find that when they reduce the quantity of dairy products in their diet at midlife, they feel a reduction in uncomfortable symptoms of menopause and many more women come into my practice stating that they just can’t digest dairy anymore, as it leaves them feeling bloated and gassy.

Many of us have concerns about the dairy industry or bovine growth hormones and are choosing an alternative to cows milk.

Plant based milks have their own separate issues, from the almonds used in almond milk reducing precious water supple in California and the inclusion of inflammatory processed seed oils in oat milk.

Hemp seeds offer a fantastic alternative for a milk, hemp seeds being packed with anti-inflammatory omega 3 fatty acids and phytoestrogens to gently top-up depleting estrogen in the body and the fact that they are a rich source of protein, calcium and magnesium.

It is also good to know that hemp plants grow in drier soils, needing less water and have long, strong tap roots that help to replenish degraded prairie soils with nutrition and to prevent soil erosion. Hemp is an all round good guy!

This recipe is quick to make and very simple. It would make a perfect addition to a weekly meal-prep routine and will provide enough milk for a daily latte throughout the week.

When you make this recipe at home, you know exactly what you are putting in your body and can choose only the nutrient-dense, whole-foods that build real health and energy in your body.

I used this milk in my recipe for Tiramisu Chia Pudding which you can find here.

Ingredients

1/2 cup Hemp Seeds
2 dates Pitted
Pinch Sea Salt
3 - 4 Cups Filtered Water (I used 3 cups for a thicker creamier milk)

Instructions

Add all of the ingredients to a high-speed blender and whizz on high until they are smooth and have formed a milk.

Place in a glass jar and refrigerate to use through the week. Shake milk before use to redistribute ingredients.

Menopause and your Heart

Nutrition is a new science and midlife womens health is an under studied area of medicine. This can make life confusing for any midlife woman.

Nutritional advice changes fast as research moves quickly or studies produce differing results in women as opposed to the initial studies carried out on animals or men. We are currently being flooded with research on womens health as medicine wakes up to the fact that women are not small men without penises but instead have a significant hormonal component to their health and are more greatly impacted negatively by stress - in a patriarchy…with misogyny and inequality…carrying the mental and emotional load…who would thunk it?!?

When I meet with new clients, one of their biggest hurdles in eating for vibrant health is an overwhelming amount of often conflicting information.

Cardiovascular disease in midlife women is one of those areas that is undergoing a significant download of research studies carried out on women, whilst at the same time, we are waking up to the power of healthy fats in the diet to support heart health, (even as food companies continue to lobby for low fat = heart healthy branding), the impact of stress on womens health and the fact that estrogen is a heart protective hormone. It is messy and the science based information is hard to find and navigate.

Let’s work through this matrix of information to find out what is best for our heart.

The number one cause of death in women is heart disease. This fact has been obscured for decades as the focus of medical research since the 70’s has been on mens heart health and the prevention of heart attacks in men. Since the mid-1980s, cardiovascular disease has killed more women than men each year. In 2011 alone, cardiovascular disease caused about 10,000 more deaths in women than men. Did you know this? Or are you still worried about your mans heart health?

We now know that estrogen is protective for our heart health and as estrogen declines and we shift into menopause, this is a risk factor for our heart health. To be clear, menopause does not cause cardiovascular disease but menopause is an additional risk factor for cardiovascular disease in women.

There is also the factor of timing when it comes to womens heart health and menopause. Multiple studies carried out over the last couple of years are equating hot flashes with an increase in cardiovascular risk, dependent on the age of the woman. If you are woman who experiences numerous hot flashes very early on in peri-menopause, in your forties, you are more at risk of a serious cardiac event in later life.

Timing is also important when we look at the fact that a woman in her forties who is in full menopause and has not experienced a period for a year has a the same risk of a cardiac event as a woman aged 55 who enters full menopause. It is not our age that is the risk factor but the decrease in estrogen.

This might require us to do some rethinking to change our mindset towards our periods. Periods are annoying, unpredictable and messy in peri-menopause but your period is a significant indicator of vitality, wellbeing and heart protective estrogen in the body. My heart breaks when I see women in online bemoaning and being done with their period in their forties, Your body is talking to you all of the time and your period is a positive affirming message of health.

Mamma Bears Breakfast

Midlife women are under tremendous pressure to maintain their youthfulness, thinness and sex appeal in our current society. This new research into womens heart health and hormones is telling us, our focus should lie not on our appearance but firmly on our wellbeing and cardiovascular health.

As we move through hormonal change, the greatest tools for ensuring cardiovascular health over the longer term are food and exercise.

When we get empowered around our food and exercise we are putting control over the outcomes for our health back into our own hands and on our plate.

Let’s look at the foods that help us to move the dial on our cardiovascular health.

Drink your water lady! Our cardiovascular system relies on the smooth running of blood around the system. HYDRATE!

Eat your fibre! Fibre is the midlife womans best friend. It helps to manage excess hormone, maintains the health of our microbiome…an important part of hormone regulation in peri-menopause and supports heart health. Fibre with each meal will help you to maintain your ideal weight and supports metabolic health. Our metabolic health…how we handle sugar, will either support your best cardiac health or tear it down. Eat vegetables, nuts seeds, fruits, berries, beans and lentils. You can also include some whole grains into your diet for fibre but the grain and dairy based diet that is the Standard American Diet is destroying our health, no matter how much we are subsidizing farms to produce these foods in distorted food policies.

Eat your healthy fats. If you are fat phobic because skinny is your ‘health’ goal, you are eating to undermine your heart health. Include olive oil, avocados, walnuts, flax oil, wild salmon, sardines, almonds, pumpkin seeds, sea bass, whole eggs, chia seeds, anchovies, coconut oil, avocado oil, hemp seeds, almond butter, olives, tahini, butter and mackerel. Supplementing with 1000mg of high quality omega 3 fatty acids each morning is also a wise choice.
Avoid sugar, trans fats and processed seed oils such as canola, corn, sunflower and soya oil that drive inflammation in the body. Avoid highly processed fat free foods that are full of fillers and chemicals designed to have the ‘mouth feel’ of fats.

Enjoy foods rich in vitamin E! Vitamin E changes the surface of our red blood cells to decrease the viscosity of our blood. Red blood cells become more slippery and blood flow is improved. Vitamin E can be found in avocados, sunflower seeds, almonds, hazelnut oil, almond oil, pine nuts, wild salmon and Rainbow trout, pistachios, kiwi fruit, Brazil nuts and peanuts. Interestingly supplementation with vitamin E capsules has been shown to reduce the incidence of hot flashes during peri-menopause. Taking 400iu of vitamin E containing mixed tocopherols (vitamin E is made up of different methylated phenols) will support your heart health and reduced hot flashes.

Eat a diet rich in the relaxation mineral magnesium. Magnesium relaxes our vasculature and musculature and supports a lower blood pressure. It is found in leafy greens, avocados, nuts and seeds, beans and lentils, wheat bran and dark chocolate or cacao. Magnesium is a co-factor in over 300 tiny biochemical reactions inside the body but it is estimated by the World Health Organization, less than 60% of the US population get sufficient magnesium in their diet. You know you are short on magnesium if you are constipated, have an annoying eye twitch or restless leg syndrome. Magnesium is fantastic for supporting heart health and aiding sleep. A supplement of 250mg of magnesium citrate, if you are constipated, or magnesium biglycinate, if you are not, taken at bedtime will support heart health and help you to sleep.

Chocolate Avocado Mousse

It is challenging to learn that midlife hormonal change is a risk factor and can have a negative impact on our health.

I prefer to see this stage of life as a healthy wake up call to what is really important in life - our health, happiness and well-being. A fully informed menopause gives us all of the information we need to step into our power and begin to make changes to eat to improve our overall health so that natural hormonal change does not derail our next chapter.

You got this! one plate at a time.

If you want options for another seriously heart-healing, gluten-free breakfast try my Heart Healthy Buckwheat Bowl