Herb Salad Dressing

There are some nudges/switches/changes that you make to the food that you eat that truly impact your health in an enormously positive way. The impact to your health is far greater than the effort required to make a change.

This is the low hanging fruit of health and wellness and when we see the recommendation we should jump straight on the train and implement.

I am thinking of simple changes to our lives like switching out coffee for Matcha to reduce cortisol in the body, increase the number of antioxidants in your day, lift your mood and reclaim your sleep; or adding coconut oil to a morning latte to calm the brain from anxiety, balance the microbiome, help with healing and sealing the gut lining by reducing gut inflammation, supercharge metabolism to burn calories more easily throughout the day and support the release of belly fat from the body.

Get it?

Small change/big impact.

I feel the same way about opening the refrigerator door and slinging all of your jarred and bottled salad dressings into the garbage can and vowing to make all your own dressings moving forward.

Simple action, big positives for health.

Let’s unpack this and find out why you need a jam jar of olive oil and lemon juice in your refrigerator more than you need anything with a label on it.

The processed food that we buy from the store is made with the cheapest ingredients and packed with sugar, additives and preservatives.

We know this, but why is it so important when it comes to an innocent jar of salad dressing?

The cheap seed oils used in bottled salad dressings such as cottonseed oil, safflower oil, corn oil, sunflower oil and canola oil are not only heat treated, bleached and striped of all scent and flavour using chemicals but are rich in omega 6 fatty acids.

Omega 6 fatty acids are detrimental to the body as they DRIVE inflammation and are actively pushing our bodies towards chronic disease when we are eating a ‘healthy’ bowl of salad!

It is understood that a healthy ratio of omega 3 fatty acids to omega 6 fatty acids in the human diet should be 1:4 but we live in a terrain packed with take-out, fast and processed foods and the majority of us in the western world have a ratio of 1: between 10 and 20.
Omega 3 fatty acids calm the nervous system, support brain health and contribute to a healthy cell wall in every cell of our body. They are essential for our cardiovascular, brain and tissue health.

When we make a dressing with hemp, pumpkin, walnut, flax or cardiovascular protective olive oil, we are kicking inflammatory oils out of our diets and loading health promoting, anti-inflammatory nutrition into its place.

Olive oil is especially beneficial as it is mono saturated and supports cardiovascular health by reducing inflammation, reducing the oxidation of bad cholesterol and lowering blood pressure.

Once you switched out the oil, it is just a case of adding even more nutrition to your dressing. Heart protective garlic, thyroid supporting sea salt and vitamin C rich lemon juice.

This herb dressing is absolutely packed with dense nutrition as you have a anti-inflammatory oil driving away chronic disease paired with microbiome supportive apple cider vinegar and the fantastic vibrant green of fresh herbs which bring, our relaxation mineral magnesium and a big dose of vitamin C and iron.

When you add the optional egg yolk and capers and anchovy you are not only amplifying flavour but adding choline for brain function from the egg yolk and MORE omega 3 fatty acids and a delicious umami taste as you throw in the anchovy.

Ingredients

1 bunch Parsley roughly chopped
1 handful Basil
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup Apple Cider Vinegar
1 heaped tsp Grainy mustard
Salt and Pepper to taste

Optional
1 egg yolk
1 anchovy
1 tbsp capers

Instructions

Add all of the ingredients to a blender and whizz until you have a smooth and emulsified dressing.

Pour over EVERYTHING! Salad, potatoes, salmon and chicken.

Watermelon, Cucumber and Feta Salad

I don’t know about where you live but summer just heated up here in Victoria BC and we are sweltering under a ‘Heat Dome’!

I have a plan to stay hydrated and it involved the purchase of big ripe watermelon which I lugged home in a reusable market bag just before the temperatures broke the 30’s C.

I am drinking my water flavoured with watermelon chunks and crunching through the sweet slices on a daily basis.

Hydration is super important to us during midlife, regardless of a heat wave, as it helps us to support our hard working liver.

#nutritional nugget It is our liver that breaks down excess hormone in the body during peri-menopause and helps to quell our more uncomfortable symptoms such as hot flashes, night sweats and mood swings.

When we are:
1. Overwhelmed and exhausted in life and jump-start our day with caffeine (a big molecule that the liver works hard to break down)
2. End our day with alcohol (more work for the liver)
3. Eat processed foods often with additives and chemicals that stress our liver
4. Eat foods packed with unhealthy fats and oils
5. Take prescription or over the counter medications daily
6. Spend each day on a blood sugar roller coaster and stress out our liver

We work our liver hard, making the peri-menopausal dance of spiking and crashing estrogen, cortisol and progesterone hormones a burden it can no longer handle without help.

This is when you feel like you are losing your mind and have lost control of your body.

You can’t sleep through the night (hello 4am anxiety)

You spend all day either anticipating or experiencing a sweaty, embarrassing and uncomfortable hot flash

You feel your mood swing from calm zen to a shaky rage in a fraction of a second even with those you love most in the world.

You wake each morning feeling exhausted and overwhelmed by what you have to get through in your day.

You wonder why your body is breaking down as you feel achy like an old woman on a daily basis especially your poor neck and shoulders.

Okay, the big one…the one that hits our confidence hardest... middle age spread. You gain pounds around your belly and your waist is vanishing leaving you feeling deeply uncomfortable in your body. Regardless of how little you eat or how much you exercise nothing shifts this stubborn, midlife ‘hormonal weight’.

Truth is that helping our liver by eating real food and dense nutrition is one of the biggest ways we can reduce peri-menopausal symptoms, calm our mood and maintain our ideal weight. Hydration to cleanse the liver is a great place to start.

Educating ourselves around nutrition in midlife and loving ourselves enough to make the food we eat a priority is also an empowering and delicious journey.

May I present my first piece of evidence in this case!

Watermelon, Feta and Cucumber Salad
¼ small watermelon cubed to bite sized pieces
½ English cucumber or 2-3 baby cucumbers
200g/4oz sheep milk feta cheese
1 large handful mint finely chopped (use basil, parsley or cilantro if that is what you have)
Balsamic vinegar enough to drizzle
Olive oil enough to drizzle
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to season

Add all ingredients to a big plate and toss lightly.
Enjoy all the cooling flavours and juicy bursts of these hydrating fruit and vegetable in your mouth knowing that you are eating to support you liver during peri-menopause.

Note: If you want to give you liver some extra love try this daily practice each morning…Daily Cleansing Lemon Water For Liver Health

Sweet Kale and Strawberry Salad with Balsamic Dressing

I think that we can officially say that it is the start of summer when I hit publish on this recipe!

Baby kale has never tasted so sweet and delicious as when paired with strawberries and tossed in a honeyed balsamic vinegar dressing.

Packed with vitamin C from the berries, immune boosting zinc from pumpkin seeds, antioxidants in the berries and kale, and the mineral dense nutrition of leafy greens that provides our bodies with iron, our relaxation mineral magnesium and easily absorbed calcium for strong bones.

Did you know that the most healthful source of calcium in our diet is leafy greens such as kale?

The calcium in leafy greens is more bioavailable to our bodies, which means it is not ‘bound up’ in the food source and can be more easily absorbed and utilized, unlike dairy based calcium.

…And then there is the food group in which the majority of us are deficient and that is fibre. This dish is fibre rich!

Start with the dressing lady and throw those ingredients into a large salad bowl.

Give them a whisk to combine and then in with the four elements of the salad. Leaves, berries, seeds and onion.

The real star of this salad is the spicy warmth of the copious black pepper ground straight into the bowl and bringing out more of the sweetness of the seasonal strawberries. Black pepper, balsamic vinegar and strawberries are great flavour friends together.

With so much beauty in one bowl and only taking 10 minutes to make, this salad is going to be on rotation all summer long.

Ingredients

4tbsp Extra virgin olive oil

2tbsp balsamic vinegar

2tsp local honey

1 small clove garlic minced

1/2 tbsp black pepper

I box baby kale or large bunch of kale finely chopped

1 punnet of fresh strawberries

1/2 red onion finely diced

1/3 cup raw pumpkin seeds

Instructions

Add all the dressing ingredients into a large salad bowl and whisk vigorously to combine.

Add the pumpkin seeds, finely chopped onion and kale leaves. Slice the strawberries into the bowl.

Using your hands gently combine all the ingredients being sure not to bruise the delicate berries.

Share with family and friends at your next summer barbecue.