Have you ever wondered what vegetables to include in your perimenopause diet, to help reduce your symptoms? If you are used to plain old lettuce, tomato and cucumber in a sandwich, this post will help you to understand, why you need to increase the variety of vegetables in your diet.

A variety of coloured vegetables including cruciferous and green leafy vegetables are essential for healthy perimenopause, as they provide antioxidants, phytonutrients and polyphenols, to counteract the effects of low oestrogen on your immune and other body systems.

The vegetables I mention on this post include sufficient variety to provide you with…

Nutrients To Support The Side-Effects Of Low Oestrogen

These nutrients counteract the effects of low oestrogen on all your body systems…

• Indole 3 carbinole from cruciferous vegetables
• Phytonutrients from a variety of coloured vegetables
• Fibre
• Plant based proteins and essential amino acids
• Vitamins, minerals and other nutrients

However, eating vegetables as part of a healthy perimenopause diet is only part of the equation.

Your perimenopause diet should also avoid foods and lifestyles that make symptoms worse. Before I share my tips, let’s understand why…

Low Oestrogen Affects Your Health

Your Immune System

Oestrogen and more importantly 17β-Oestradiol, is an anti-inflammatory hormone. Equally important, many organs of the body contain receptors for oestrogen.

As oestrogen affects your whole immune system, when your levels drop, your immune system becomes less effective at protecting you against opportunistic bugs.

This is even more so, if your diet has minimal fresh fruits and vegetables to provide the…

• Vitamins
• Minerals
• Enzymes
• Protein
• Fibre and
• Healthy fats

…needed to support the side-effects of low oestrogen on your immune system.

As a result, you may be more likely to catch infections, flu, stomach bugs and whatever else is going around. In fact, this is the reason why women are at higher risk for autoimmune conditions at menopause.

Your Metabolism

Another key point, is that oestradiol regulates how your body uses energy from the food you eat. Instead of using glucose from your diet to fuel your muscles, lower oestrogen levels cause your body to store fat around your middle.

This creates a negative cycle of, the more adipose tissue (fat) you carry, the lower your immune system as…

Adipose tissue…

• Increase insulin resistance and obesity
• Secrete hormones that affect metabolism, hunger and satiety, vascular function, hypertension and other body systems
• Create a state chronic inflammation by secreting pro-inflammatory cytokines, including tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and interleukin-6 (IL-6)
• Increase your risk for menopause associated diseases

As your body is a complex, interconnected system, the effect of low oestrogen on these two body systems, create a domino effect on the rest of your body.

The effect is subjective to each woman and is the reason why each woman experience different symptoms.

So what vegetables should you include in your perimenopause diet, to protect your health and reduce perimenopause symptoms?

Cruciferous Vegetables

These vegetables include kale, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, pak choi, brussels sprouts and many others. They are from the Brassica family and that provide compounds known as indole 3 carbinole (I3C), when broken down.

Vegetables that release I3C are important for women at perimenopause and menopause because they…

• Increase the activity of some anti-oxidant enzymes to support the immune system
• Reduce chronic inflammation by reducing the expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines
• Provide chemo and anti-tumour protective properties that reduce the risk for cancer
• Block oestrogen receptors that may otherwise cause cells to multiply and turn cancerous
• Activate the enzymes that support the breakdown and elimination of steroid hormones, most importantly, oestrogen. If these used hormones are not eliminated effectively, they recirculate and become more toxic.

Green Leafy Vegetables

These include swiss chard, kale, spinach, cabbage, spring greens, rocket, romaine lettuce.

Green leafy vegetable provide anti-oxidant and anti-microbial activities, as well as being good sources of…

• Plant based proteins
• Carbohydrates
• Vitamins, minerals, folic acid,
• Fibre
• Essential amino acids

Green leafy vegetables are great sources of the mineral, magnesium, which plays an important role in many body functions, including calming the nervous system.

If your perimenopause symptoms include…

• Anxiety
• Low moods
• Mood swings
• Migraine
• Insomnia

Lots of green leafy vegetables in you diet, provide natural sources of magnesium to calm your nervous system.

By now, you can see how the benefits of cruciferous and green leafy vegetables overlap.

Ideally at least a quarter to half of your plate at lunch and dinner should include green leafy and cruciferous vegetables, because they provide sources of…

Slow Release Carbohydrates 

Rice, pasta, bread etc are great comfort foods.

However, refined and simple carbohydrates release their glucose content quickly. As the body can only handle a small amount of glucose at a time, insulin is released to bring the body back into balance.

In addition, the more sugary food you have, the more rapid the insulin release. This creates a state of hypoglycaemia or low blood sugar.

If you eat a lot of cakes, biscuits, sweets or any other sugary foods and find that you feel drained a lot of the time, this is the reason why.

This may also be the reason why you wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep again.

Vegetables contain fibre that slows down the release of glucose and this helps to keep your energy levels up through the day and night. If you would like more tips on how to overcome perimenopause sleep problems, you may find this post useful.

When you have good blood sugar balance, you are less likely to…

• Snack in between meals
• Choose convenience foods that release glucose quickly, increase your weight and the associated risks for insulin resistance
• Wake up in the middle of the night because of poor blood sugar control

Prebiotic And Alliaceous Foods

These include artichokes, bananas, asparagus, garlic, onions, chicory, green vegetables, and legumes.

These foods are either not broken down at all or are partly broken down by our digestive system, so they ferment when they reach the colon. This fermentation provides nutrients for beneficial but bacteria known as short-chain fatty acids.

Short-chain fatty acids supports us in many ways, including…

• Support for the immune system and
• Increase our energy levels

In fact, short-chain fatty acids produce 5 to 15 percent of our total energy!

Fibre Rich Vegetables In Your Perimenopause Diet May Help Balance Your Moods

It is important to have a healthy balance of non-beneficial and beneficial bacteria in our gut. This helps to counteract the side-effects of low oestrogen levels and support our immune system.

For some time now, science has known that depression is associated with an imbalance of gut bacteria. Considering that, perimenopause symptoms include…

• Mood swings
• Depression and
• Anxiety

You may find that increasing fruit and vegetables in your diet, provides your gut bacteria with nutrients to improve your moods.

Healthy Fats

These include avocado, olives, olive oil, coconut and coconut oil. Okay, I know avocado is a fruit. However these foods, as well as…

• Seeds: chia, flax, pumpkin
• Nuts: cashews, brazil, pistachio, almond and other nuts

…provide plant based sources of healthy fats, as well as fibre.

You can add seeds in your breakfast and snack on nuts instead of sweets, biscuits or chocolate when you feel the need for a pick-me-up.

Avocados, olives, nuts and seeds have several functions in your perimenopause diet. They…

• Reduce inflammation
• Support your immune system
• Keep you feel for longer
• Maintains your energy levels
• Help balance your hormones

Nuts and seeds also provide fibre to support healthy bowel movements and eliminate used hormones.

Just as importantly, healthy fats provide nutrients for the brain and nervous system. If you experience perimenopause mood imbalances, you may benefit from adding fish, nuts, seeds, avocado and other sources of healthy fats in your diet.

Bitter Foods

Again, these foods overlap with the benefits of cruciferous and green leafy vegetables. As we age, our body’s production of digestive enzymes decrease.

As a result our digestive system becomes less effective and we may experience, bloating, gas, constipation or diarrhoea and discomfort.

Bitter foods include rocket, kale, Brussel sprouts, watercress, spinach and many cruciferous vegetables. If you are more adventurous, you could also try bitter melon, also known as bitter gourd.

Bitter melon is used in Asian dishes and as the name says, this vegetable is very bitter. We don’t have it that much as Mr G is not a fan. Nor am I really, but I eat it because it helps with my digestion and it is full of nutrients to support my immune system.

Bitter foods are thought to help stimulate digestive enzymes. If you are not able to digest your food, you may not absorb the nutrients, regardless of how healthy your diet is. 

Multi-Coloured Vegetables 

This might seem like an attempt to include every vegetable under the sun. But it is not really.

As much as green vegetables provide important nutrients for perimenopause, it is not possible to get all the nutrients you need from one source. In other words, variety is key.

Multi-coloured vegetables, especially the darker varieties contain polyphenols, or compounds that have anti-oxidant properties. Polyphenols have the potential to reduce risk for…

• Cardiovascular disease
• Metabolic disorders such as insulin resistance and diabetes and
• Cancer

For women in perimenopause, phytonutrients support healthy oestrogen metabolism.

Vegetables for this section includes…

• Dark green leafy vegetables: kale, savoy cabbage, green beans, courgette, purple cabbage, purple cauliflower 
• Red, Orange and Yellow: tomatoes, peppers, sweet potato, carrots, squash, red onion, kidney beans, turmeric, yam, potato, corn on the cob
• Blue, Purple and Black: augbegine (egg plant), cauliflower, black rice, potato, kale

This is not an exhaustive list and polyphenols are also present in fruits, dark chocolate and cocoa, red wine and coffee.

Pulses

These include kidney beans, lentils, adzuki beans, chickpeas, haricots, pinto, borlotti and many others.

Pulses are really important for providing you with complex carbohydrates and plant based proteins, that sustain your energy levels during the day.

Additionally, pulses provide fibre such as…

• Hemicellulose
• Cellulose and
• Resistant Starch

…that are difficult to digest. As a result, pulses also provide nutrients for beneficial bacteria in the gut.

However, balance is key. You need to be aware that pulses contain compounds called phytates, that are known as anti nutrients.

What this means, is that phytates bind with certain nutrients as they pass through the digestive system. As a result, you are not able to absorb those nutrients. This may then leave you nutrient deficient in certain minerals and vitamins.

(PMC6266829, PMC6462997)

How Much Vegetables To Include In Your Perimenopause Diet

Ideally, your lunch and dinner, should consist of half of the plate full of vegetables. This ensures that you get sufficient nutrients that you need.

Breakfast Suggestion

• For breakfast, you could add vegetables such as broccoli, tomatoes or asparagus, as well as onion and garlic, to make a frittata. You could even make the frittata the day before and have it for lunch at work with salad, instead of your usual sandwich.
• You could make overnight oats by soaking a cupful of oats with your milk of choice and in the morning, add berries and nuts or seeds

Lunch And Dinner

Whether you have meat, poultry or fish with your lunch or dinner, add half a plate of green leafy or cruciferous vegetables to your protein source.

You could have beans, lentils or other pulses as a plant based source of protein, if you prefer vegetarian dishes.

For Snacks

You can snack on a handful of nuts instead of biscuits or chocolate. If you have bigger hands, you will need to limit the nuts you have to about 8 to 10 nuts. Although nuts add great nutritional value to your perimenopause diet, they are also high in calories and fat. Like all things, balance is key.

Other snack ideas include…

• carrot, celery or cucumber batons with hummus
• avocado with papaya
• boiled egg with spinach
• plain live yogurt with fruit and nuts

It may take time to get used to these combinations of snacks and main meals, but if you focus on your main goal of reducing your perimenopause symptoms, it may make the transition easier.

How To Make Eating Vegetables Easier

If you are not used to having so much vegetables in your diet to begin with, you may need to build up the amount of vegetables you eat over time. This is a more sustainable way to increase your vegetable intake.

Also begin with vegetables you most like to eat and add a new vegetable in your diet per week. Try to be creative with your food and add a new vegetable to different dishes or recipes 3 times per week.

How adventurous are you with vegetables? What’s the weirdest vegetable you’ve tried. What questions do you have regarding adding vegetables to your perimenopause diet? Would love your comments below!