Moules Mariniére For Thyroid Support

During peri-menopause, when our hormones are doing a dance as estrogen and progesterone start to wane, it is easy for our thyroid gland to become exhausted.
The thyroid gland is a master gland in a womans’ body and is responsible for our circadian rhythm, our menstrual cycle and our metabolism. When our thyroid is under functioning and sluggish we feel the results across many areas of our body.

Do you have cold hands and feet?
Is it hard for you to wake up and feel energized in the morning? You feel low energy, sluggish and tired!
Do you have dry skin that feels flaky and rough?
Is you hair texture dry, brittle and lifeless?
Despite feeling tired, do you have difficulty getting to sleep when you go to bed at night?
Are you constipated? Do you have less than 1 poop or ‘daily detox’ a day?
Are you gaining weight and non of your old tricks or low calorie strategies are working to shift it?
Has your libido dropped to the floor leaving you and your boo unsatisfied and confused?

All of these symptoms that are often part and parcel of peri-menopause can be improved by taking a little time and care to support your thyroid gland with nutrition.

1. Be sure to include enough healthy fat into you diet. Add and avocado to a salad and stir a tsp of coconut oil into a morning latte. Coconut oil is highly supportive to the thyroid gland as the medium chain fatty acids are chosen first by the body for fuel and fire up our metabolism in the morning.

2. Increase the minerals in your diet by snacking on walnuts, Brazil nuts, pumpkin seeds, pistachios and almonds. In this way you will increase the amount of selenium (particularly found in Brazil nuts), and zinc (richly sourced in pumpkin seeds) in your diet. These two minerals are important co-factors for a very important chemical reaction that happens inside the thyroid gland where the thyroid hormone T4 is converted to active T3. It is active T3 that we want in our bodies, firing up our metabolism to prevent weight gain and give us energy, managing our circadian rhythm so that we actually feel sleepy when we get into our beds and supporting us as our menstrual cycle begins to get erratic and draw to a close.

3. Maintain healthy iron stores. There is a link between a low functioning thyroid gland and iron deficiency and research is still being carried out in this area. What this means for the midlife woman who may be experiencing heavy flow periods or gut health issues is to ensure that she includes foods rich in iron into her diet. Red lentils and beans, nuts and seeds, spinach and other leafy greens.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2239756

4. Include iodine rich foods into our diet by snacking on seaweed, eating sea fish and preparing delicious food for yourself such as this Moules Mariniére. Find another great thyroid gland supporting recipe here

So simple to prepare, Moules Mariniére takes only ten minutes to cook and you have a protein rich, deliciously garlicky and lemony, star of French cuisine on your table!
Shellfish and especially mussels are rich in protein and the minerals iodine, zinc and iron. They are a perfect food to support the health and function of your thyroid gland.
For many years, especially during the winter months, when shellfish is in season, I visit the fish stall in my local farmers market and buy a 1/2lb of mussels. As soon as I walk in the door, i wash and cook the mussels and enjoy a special ‘just for me’ , made in 10 minutes meal, that is just me supporting my thyroid gland.
I highly recommend this indulgence for you too!

Ingredients

1lb fresh or frozen mussels rinsed under cold water in a colander.
1 lemon juiced
2tbsp olive oil or butter
1-2 cloves fresh garlic

Instructions

1. Put the olive oil or butter in a pan and heat gently
2. Add the minced garlic and sauté until the garlic is soft. 1-2 minutes.
3. Add the mussels and any water clinging to them to the pan
4. Squeeze in the juice of a lemon
5. Put the lid on the pan and turn up the heat to medium/high to steam the mussels for 7 minutes
6. Turn the cooked mussels into a bowl and discarded any unopened shells.
7. Dive in and enjoy the garlicky lemony protein bites. Notice any changes to your energy levels as you include this protein and mineral dense food into your diet regularly.

If you have a sluggish thyroid gland and want to avoid raw leafy greens in your daily smoothie, you might like to try this ‘greens-free’ Beet, Celery, Apple and Ginger Smoothie. Click here for the recipe.

Red Lentil and Lemon Soup

I am a very lazy cook and delight in recipes that are simple to make but still pack a nutritional punch.

This recipe for Red Lentil and Lemon Soup hits all of my recipe pleasure points: It is quick, easy and packed with flavour created by simple but nutritionally dense ingredients.

Lets break it down and take a look at how this simple soup recipe can support our beautiful midlife body:

1. Lentils. Rich in fibre and iron this quick to cook plant protein source helps to support our daily detox (read poop!) with fibre so that excess hormone can be eliminated from the body, helps to keep our iron stores healthy, provides us with energy boosting B vitamins and lentils give us slow burn energy that helps us to feel full and happy!
2. Bone Broth. I keep repeating myself on this one; bone broth is a superfood for the midlife woman.
Mineral dense to support weary adrenal glands and a sluggish thyroid, bone broth provides us with easily absorbed amino acids that support gut health (no more gassy bloat ladies!) collagen for joint health and great looking skin, and again with the minerals that support our bone health as we move into the next chapter. You can read more here
3. I am just going to give some praise to the cumin and chilli that give this recipe such a delicious flavour. These spices are warming to the body and support the midlife woman in maintaining a healthy metabolic rate. Spicy foods warm us from the inside out and ignite our internal furnace or metabolic rate giving the thyroid gland a ‘baby vacation’. And again…flavour!
4. Let’s talk about fast food! This nutrient dense soup is on the table within 20 minutes providing you with a delicious meal in less time than it would take you to order in. AND YOU WILL BE SUPPORTING YOUR HEALTH! Yes! I am shouting. Do yourself a solid ladies and throw the ingredients in your slow cooker!
5. Most of the ingredients for this recipe are found in the store cupboard or the bottom of your crisper. One carrot, an onion, a bag of red lentils, spices and some tomato paste. This recipe is a health promoting food and unlike a Gywneth endorsed juice cleanse, is within the budget and capabilities of everyone.

Life is busy, you don’t have time to spend hours in the kitchen labouring over supper, this recipe gives you a delicious and quick midweek option that delivers nutrition to your body in warming tasty mouthfuls.

…whenever you make bone broth, this recipe should be uppermost in your mind and if you are curious about which other foods work hardest to build health for a midlife woman you can download my FREE E-book, 10 Essential Health promoting Foods for the Midlife Woman.

Ingredients

2 tbsp coconut oil

1 onion diced

2 cloves garlic minced

1 carrot diced

1 tsp ground cumin

1tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp sea salt

1 tbsp tomato paste

1 cup red lentils

11/2 quarts chicken bone broth

1/2 lemon juiced

1 cup frozen spinach (optional)

Instructions

1. Gently melt the coconut oil in a pan and add the onion garlic, carrot and salt and spices

2. Sauté the vegetables and spices gently to release their delicious aroma

3. Add the tomato paste and simmer for 1 minute to cook the paste out and improve the flavour

4. Add the lentils, chicken bone broth and lemon juice and simmer the soup for 20 minutes or until the lentils are softened.

5. Blend the soup with a hand blender to form a smooth texture.

6. Add a cup of frozen spinach to increase the iron content of the soup or more lemon juice if you like a sour soup
   Enjoy!

If you like warming spices and meals that pack a punch with flavour, click here to get my recipe for anti-inflammatory Turmeric and Vegetable Thai Curry.

Celebrate with Baked Salmon

It is the season of gathering and celebration and our focus turns to the food that we share with our friends and family. Things can get RICH and sugary!

I like to plan to eat fish or shellfish at least once or twice through the holiday period, on Christmas Eve and shellfish on New Years Eve, so that I know I will be regularly sitting down to lean protein and a healthy dose of omega 3 fatty acids for a food source. I also love that I can have a delicious roast on the table in under twenty minutes when I choose a gorgeous side of wild salmon!

Science finds it incredibly hard to measure the health benefits of nutrition in clinical trials, especially when using supplements, but whilst correlation cannot prove causation, numerous population studies have found that those folks who include cold water fatty fish in their diets enjoy many positive health benefits and I want in on that!

Omega 3’s are correlated with improved cardiovascular health, reduced incidence of dementia and depression and reduced inflammation in the body.

Our standard American diet provides us with an abundance of inflammation promoting omega 6 fatty acids and planning meals that will redress the balance of our lipid profile is a sensible choice. Especially during the stressful holiday season.

Simple, quick and deliciously easy to dress up, make wild salmon a part of your family holiday traditions.

Ingredients

1 1/2 lb wild salmon, filet or steak 1 tablespoon olive oil
1-2 sprigs fresh rosemary
1/4 tsp sea salt

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Pat the salmon dry and place on sheet. Drizzle olive oil along the salmon and spread evenly with the back of a spoon or rub a teaspoon of paprika into the flesh of the salmon. Sprinkle sea salt evenly over the fish. Sprinkle fresh rosemary leaves evenly over the fish or cover with a few lemon slices.

Place in the oven for 12-15 minutes or until ready. The fish will flake and lose its opaqueness when it is ready.