Nutritionist Suzi Grant’s fave anti-ageing recipes.
So you may well have come across the amazing nutritionist and alternative ageing guru Suzi Grant before. Since we met a few years ago, we’ve had some brilliant meetups which led to her fab vintage shopping guide (read up on that here). More recently she came over to my home to help me out on pinpointing how we should be enhancing our diets to help us fly through the pre-menopause and menopause with a skip in our steps.
Now I don’t know about you, but for me, as the dreaded pre-meno turns into more of a raging-in-your-face-mood-swinging-crap-fest, I’ve taken to reading up more about how to best deal with the ups and downs in order to try to glide through it all vaguely gracefully. For starters, there’s all that should I/shouldn’t I on the HRT question, before we’ve even got started on afternoon slumps and mid-week blues. So I thought I’d seek out Suzi’s no-nonsense advice which she doles out on her awesome blog Alternative Ageing weekly.
As a qualified nutritionist, Suzi has spent time writing her own books on natural anti-ageing, but when it comes to recipes, she loves nothing better than to use quick and easy recipes from one of her favourite chefs Jamie Oliver and add a little anti-ageing twist to them. In today’s post, she cooked Jamie’s All Day Mexican Breakfast from his super successful 5 Ingredients book and talked me through why it’s the perfect anti-ageing meal.
Jamie Oliver’s All Day Mexican Breakfast
You will need…
1-2 fresh mixed colour chillies
4 large eggs
1 x 400g tin of black beans
1 ripe avocado
1 lime
Serves 2
Here’s what to do…
- Finely slice the chillies then sprinkle half of them into a 30cm non-stick frying pan on a medium heat with 1 teaspoon of olive oil.
- Once they start to sizzle, evenly crack in the eggs, then spoon the black beans and just half the juice from the juice from the tin in and around the eggs.
- Season with sea salt and black pepper, cover and cook the eggs to your liking.
- Meanwhile, halve, peel and destone the avocado, then slice into thin wedges.
- Dress with the lime juice and season to taste.
- Arrange the avocado around the pan, scatter over the rest of the chillies, stab the egg yolks, and serve.
So what’s so great about this recipe? Well apart from the super quick 15 minutes it takes to prep, this recipe has eggs which are one of the most complete proteins on the planet. They do NOT raise cholesterol unless fried in masses of oil or butter are high in all nutrients including anti-oxidants for healthy eyes. “Go to work on an egg” made absolute sense as health advice back in the day, and it’s still true today.
Next up the avocado which is another nutrient dense food choice. The only fruit that contains heart-healthy monounsaturated fat, or good fat! Good fat is essential for a healthy menopause, and also they are NOT fattening. Suzi also adds that the body doesn’t store healthy fats, only rubbish fats, sugar and carbs.
Finally the beans and in particular why black beans? Beans, peas and lentils also contain compounds that can help your body produce natural progesterone. For happy hormones and high nutrition, they are a must for peri or full on menopause. Try to incorporate more of these into your eating plan.
If you fancy more ideas from Suzi on Alternative Ageing – head to her blog here where you can also sign up for her newsletter. Or follow her daily adventures on Instagram @alternativeageing
We will be bringing you another couple of recipes in this series so keep an eye out for more.
I’ve added this post to the fab #SaturdayShareLinkup with Catherine Summers from Not Dressed as Lamb – if you fancy some more weekend reads take a peek here.