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What Every Woman Should Know About Hormones, part 2 of 4


Robyn Openshaw - Jun 29, 2012 - This Post May Contain Affiliate Links


You already know fresh fruits and veggies can help protect your health. Thousands of studies say so. Part of that is vitamins and mineral and fiber, of course. But part is that they protect against estrogen dominance! There are seven classes of “phytoestrogens” that you would be wise to seek out, in your diet:

Isoflavones and coumestans are the strongest classes of these nutrients, ten times stronger than the others. Legumes have the highest concentration of both isoflavones and coumestans. In countries where women suffer the least from PMS and menopause—Asia, South and Central America–legumes are staples. In the U.S., we eat meat instead of legumes. And meat is heavy to digest: acidic, highly estrogenic, free of fiber, and low in micronutrients.

Flavones, coflavonones, flavanols, lignans, and chalcones are the other five compounds. They might sound like Greek to you, but exposure to those words will help you recognize references in the future to these little friends that heal and protect us from risk everywhere in our environment. One reason I promote a 60-80 percent raw diet is that raw foods are phenomenally healing, but if we take up an extreme position of 100 percent, we’ve eliminated legumes. They add bulk, they’re easy to eat, and they’re highly nutritious as evidenced by research on the many millions of people on the planet who eat a lot of them. (Yes, you can sprout raw legumes, and feel free to do that, but they’re starchy and hard to eat that way in any kind of quantity.)

You can’t always control the smog you’re exposed to—but you can certainly control what you put in your mouth. Some disease factors are fully in your control, and the flip side, when you follow the rules, is that you have stable mood, youthfulness, and pretty skin, hair and nails.

Because when you lose your female hormones, it’s your body’s signal to begin dying. Who wants THAT? Not me.

Here’s the good news. You don’t have to chase berries up the Himalayan mountains to get a variety of these compounds in your diet. These are found in virtually every vegetable, fruit, seed, legume, and grain.

Shocker! It’s the diet I teach. All paths lead to Rome on this blog, don’t they? It’s not an agenda of mine—it’s science. It’s like shootin’ fish in a barrel, to prove to you why you should EAT MORE PLANTS. The reasons are so many, to shift to this kind of diet, I can hardly enumerate them!

A simple progression in a year of transition, and you, too, could be eating the most disease-preventative diet possible. While living in the “real world,” traveling, going to parties, and having a normal social life. It’s possible. I do it.

Tomorrow we talk a little about specifics of estrogen and progesterone.

Posted in: Health Concerns, Whole Food

5 thoughts on “What Every Woman Should Know About Hormones, part 2 of 4”

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  1. Anonymous says:

    Thanks so much for all this wonderful info Robyn! Very encouraging to know I’m headed in the right direction. My body is loving 12 steps and it’s only been 2 months I cannot wait to see/feel and report on all the new changes coming my way. 🙂 Ps. Your recipes are Amazing!!!

  2. Anonymous says:

    This was a great article. Left me wanting to learn more! How do I subscribe?

  3. Anonymous says:

    Dear Robyn,

    As always you write excellent articles about very important issues and I can’t thank you enough for the impact you have had on my life. I know we don’t know each other personally but you have changed my life and every thing I eat. I work at a high school and have spread your green smoothie message to my students, who love green smoothies now.

    I would like to ask a question a little off the subject of hormones but definitely part of your 12 steps program. I have been making and using raw goat’s milk kefir with kefir grains for over 3 years now. I have not been sick one day since beginning to make kefir. However, I am reading every nutrition book I can and recent read The China Study and also Dr Fuhrman’s books where it is not recommended to eat meat or dairy. I know I read that you make kefir and give it to your kids but that you only use a little of the whey for yourself as an adult. Would you talk more about kefir and why you choose to only use the whey if that is correct? I am moving closer and closer to 80% raw and enjoying it actually. I am wanting to limit dairy and meat to very rare occasions but also want the benefits that I was getting from the probiotics in the kefir milk. I add 1/2 cup of kefir to my green smoothie every morning and love it. Should I give it up? Do you think kombucha tea provides the same probiotic benefits? I worry about the use of sugar in the tea to make the kombucha. A friend gave me a kombucha mother but I am thinking the kefir may provide better probiotics. Sorry for the lengthy questions but I value your opinions. Have a wonderful summer full of healthy garden food. Jeanne

  4. Robyn Openshaw says:

    Hi Jeanne, congrats on wonderful successes! I asked Dr. Campbell, author and lead researcher of the China Study, what he thought about kefir and yogurt, being proteins that are fermented, or broken down, pre-digested. He said his research did not cover that and it’s possible that they are good foods for people; he didn’t know.

    The positive effects are well documented. That said, the current 12 Steps manual has a much expanded Step 8, on fermented foods. You should try a couple of different types of fermented foods that work well in your life and schedule. They all have different organisms, different benefits. Thus my suggestion to incorporate two or more. I don’t eat kefir made from milk; that said, my children do, every day. It is not mucous forming, even with cow milk. On the other hand, regular dairy products are highly mucous forming for them. I use coconut kefir, myself. I am not opposed to dairy kefir; I just don’t really like it, or it doesn’t fit into my diet somehow.

    Kombucha is good stuff but I don’t think the fermentation could possibly eat up all the sugar (otherwise, why is it still sweet?). I teach that in 12 Steps now, too.

    Robyn

  5. Anonymous says:

    I live in Mexico and six months ago I subscribed to your site because I like everything natural. I have 58 years and many hormonal problems. I can not attend your lectures by distance. Can you help? I want know how to improve without using the estrogen patch.

    Elvia

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