Chicken Salad, Hormones, and Seeds
Chicken Salad in 10 min. It works soooo well with all the greens going off at the farmers market and from your local CSA. Just use anyone of them to wrap this recipe up like a little baby and nourish yourself and family for dayz! Recipe at the bottom.
This recipe works because it feeds you and your family more than once and is loaded with greens and many other veggies. However, today I am going to spend one hot second talking about seeds, fats, and hormones.
If you are one of the many thousands of female athletes without your period, have irregular periods, have painful periods, are just feeling off each month, are trying to get pregnant, or are in the postpartum phase in life… it’s time to listen up: healthy fats balance your hormones and if used during specific times each month can influence both hormone production and metabolism. Please read this article on seed cycling and contact me for more detailed information on how to use seed cycling and other fats for improved performance and hormonal regulation.
I seed cycled after each pregnancy and after 2-3 months of use, I was balanced and having regular predictable periods. I also felt so much better. Don’t worry about executing seed cycling perfectly. When you are parenting young children perfection is not a possibility. If perfection is the thing standing between you and just getting the seeds into your diet; forget perfection. Just make the commitment and just start. Perfection is not a pre-requisite for change but deciding and acting are, so let’s rock and roll, friends.
If you are a female of pre-menopausal age and are not having a regular period its not something to minimize. Birth control is often prescribed to women who have hormonal imbalances and in most cases is the equivalent to throwing gas on a wildfire. Additionally synthetic estrogens found in birth control medications pass thru our urine and to our waste water treatment facility where they cannot be removed and head right back to our municipal water supply and larger water sheds. YUCK. This and other sources of water pollution can be a significant source of endocrine disruption and dysfunction in both men and women.
Adding seeds to your diet at specific times of the month will, in most cases, get your period and hormones back to a healthy place. Living with stress or exercise induced amenorrhea is a set up for life long hormonal imbalances, metabolic disorders, fertility issues, and osteoporosis. Parents of teenage runners, please advocate and seek the help of a medical professional who will listen and have more than one tool in the tool box to address your health concerns. If you have any questions, please contact me. Most hormonal imbalances can be addressed at the level of nutrition and lifestyle.
Summer Loving Chicken Salad:
1 LBS of organic, local, or responsibly sourced chicken with skin on, salted, peppered, rosemary cooked however you like, I like the grill. Once cooked, set aside to cool. When cooled, shred apart.
In a separate bowl add: 1 Cup NuCo Vegan Mayo (or use whatever mayo you want, just read the ingredients and make sure the fats are from good sources and not inflammatory like canola, soy, cotton seed, corn, sunflower, sesame, or peanut.)
1/3 Cup cup favorite mustard
Handful of fresh minced dill
Minced chives/garlic to taste
Handful or more of chopped cilantro
Juice from 1 lemon
Seeds add-a heaping handful of each: walnuts, sunflower, pumpkin seeds.
cranberries- a handful
1 apple chopped
2 celery sticks chopped
1/4 red onion chopped
combined the shredded chicken in with other ingredients, add additional sea salt and pepper to taste.
Serve over greens or wrap in lettuce, collard, swiss chard, or any of the huge greens growing like weeds right now. So good.
Share with friends and loved ones.
As always know your ingredients and source them well. It’s why cooking at home rocks and getting skillful at it can make your life so much healthier and sustainable.