Estrogen: The Natural Way: Over 250 Easy and Delicious Recipes for Menopause [Paperback]

Estrogen: The Natural Way is a cookbook with a difference: every recipe is high in plant estrogens, which can relieve menopausal discomforts such as hot flashes, sweats, and sleep disturbance. Plant estrogens may protect against heart disease and osteoporosis--without the increased risk of breast cancer. In fact, they may protect against cancer, say author Nina Shandler and her endorsing team of physicians. Shandler tells her story of menopausal distress ("I felt like a middle-aged bed wetter") and her reactions to hormone replacement therapy (nausea, headache, rage against males). Her quest for other solutions led her to plant estrogens. She offers rich information in a simple, accessible style; she's like an educated friend reporting back after library trips and personal revelations.

The winners among estrogen-rich foods are soy and flaxseed. Shandler uses soy to create creamy foods that taste decadent despite their low calorie count. She adds ground flaxseeds to recipes for a crunchy texture. The 250 recipes in Estrogen: The Natural Way are a tasty array of breakfasts, breads, soups, snack bars, salads, pastas, entrees, and desserts, most of which are quick and easy to prepare. Menopausal women seeking the benefits of estrogen without drugs will find this book a practical and pleasant solution. --Joan Price

Those desiring alternatives to standard hormone replacement therapy (HRT) during menopause will find useful information in each of these books. All focus on menopause as a natural process and on the alleviation of menopausal discomfort through healthy living, especially diet. All explain menopausal symptoms, current HRT treatment and side effects, the importance of particular hormones, and the use of plant hormones instead of synthesized drugs. And all discuss in varying detail hormones and their relationship to breast cancer, heart disease, and osteoporosis. Laux, a naturopathic doctor, and Conrad, his former patient and founder of the Natural Woman Institute, espouse the Natural Woman plan in their book. They include an interesting historical overview of both the medicinal use of plants and the pharmaceutical industry, also detailing what the "naturals" are and how to get them. The MEND Clinic Guide usefully covers a variety of alternative therapies for menopause, including herbal therapy, aromatherapy, homeopathy, mind-body therapies, massage, acupressure, and relaxation techniques. Maas is an M.D., Paula Brown an anthropologist, and Susan E. Bruning a health writer (Healing Homeopathic Remedies, Dell, 1996). An A-Z of menopausal symptoms and alternative remedies provides quick reference, and one chapter discusses diseases, including diabetes. Cookbook author Shandler concentrates on obtaining estrogen from plants. Each of her 250 recipes, ranging from yellow cauliflower curry to chocolate snack bars, incorporates either tofu, soy products, or flax seed and estimates the estrogen content per portion. While many of the recipes look tempting, only the determined are likely to follow this diet. While these three books are recommended for alternative-medicine collections, Dr. Susan Love's Hormone Book (LJ 3/1/97) is likely to become the menopause book of choice.?Kate Kelly, Treadwell Lib., Massachusetts General Hosp., Boston
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

There's certainly a large market for this new cookbook about plant estrogens: female baby boomers who want not only to avoid hormone-replacement therapy (HRT) but also to eat healthier and more vegetarian. Shandler, a psychologist and cookbook author, wisely asked three nutritionally oriented medical doctors to prepare the book's 23-page introduction, in which readers learn that "women are looking for ways to replace lost estrogen without endangering themselves--for ways to maintain the health of their hearts and bones while protecting themselves from breast cancer." The protective effects and health benefits of soy and flaxseed are outlined and documented. Shandler tells of her own discovery of estrogenic foods after proving intolerant of HRT; the more than 250 recipes here resulted from her need to add soy and flaxseed to her diet. Following a comprehensive discussion of soy foods, including the available densities of tofu, come recipes from granolas to soups to main dishes to (of course!) desserts--each with work time and equipment needed, often an electric food processor or coffee grinder. Penny Spokes --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Women need estrogen, but estrogen levels diminish with age. In the short term, estrogen's departure leaves most women in a frequently overheated, uncomfortable state. In the long term, its exodus places their hearts, bones, and brains in harm's way. And conventional hormone replacement therapy, with its potentially distressing side effects and increased risk of breast cancer, doesn't provide a reassuring rescue. Faced with every menopausal woman's frightening estrogen dilemma, Nina Shandler discovered exciting news: Some foods contain estrogen. She headed straight for the kitchen and created this easy-to-swallow alternative. Part eating program, part cookbook, Estrogen: The Nat-ural Way shows women how to make fast, fun food using nature's estrogenic ingredients. From breakfast bars to soups, from main courses to desserts, Estrogen: The Natural Way provides a gentle yet effective version of estrogen replacement therapy.

"Hooray! Finally a book which makes the dietary approach to menopausal symptoms easy and delicious. It sent me straight to the kitchen."
-- Susan M. Love, author of Dr. Susan Love's Hormone Book
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Praise for Estrogen: The Natural Way

"Hooray! Finally--a book that makes the dietary approach to menopausal symptoms easy and delicious. It sent me straight to the kitchen."
        --Susan M. Love, M.D., author of Dr. Susan Love's Hormone Book

"A unique and invaluable book. It takes an unflinching look at menopause and shows women how to do a gentle yet potent version of estrogen replacement therapy, using the kitchen instead of the drugstore. It is backed by absolutely solid science, and written with the charm, personality, and engagement that can come only from personal experience."         --Bill Lawren, co-author of The Zone

"This book is an excellent resource. It contains information that every woman should be aware of, as well as recipes. The recipes are beneficial to both sexes, because they improve our state of health."
        --Bernie Siegel, M.D., author of Love, Medicine and Miracles

"This cookbook might well be subtitled 'The Joy of Soy.' The 250 recipes offer myriad creative--and even palatable--ways to incorporate soy, flaxseed, and other ingredients high in plant estrogens into your diet. An invaluable resource for postmenopausal women who are not on HRT."        --Harvard Women's Health Watch

Nina Shandler has written about diet and health for more than twenty years and has published several cookbooks. She lives in western Massachusetts with her husband, Michael. They have two daughters.