The Happy Balance by Megan Hallett, Nicole Jardim

The Happy Balance by Megan Hallett, Nicole Jardim ISBN-13: 9781781318607 Hardcover: 208 pages Publisher: White Lion Publishing Released: May 28, 2019

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
The human body is complex – it is a delicate balance of systems working together to keep us at optimal health. And we are disrupting it. Instead of working with our bodies, we are constantly stressing them, with toxins and pollutants, with unhealthy lifestyles and high stress levels, with nutrition-poor diets and sedentary lifestyles. We have become hopelessly out of sync with our natural rhythms. With expert advice, lifestyle tips, and delicious plant-based recipes, let The Happy Balance be your trusted guide to a vital and energized life.


My Review:
The Happy Balance provides an overview of hormones related to the menstrual cycle and natural ways to balance those hormones, plus recipes. The author started with a "crash guide" to the hormones and menstrual cycle. She then talked some about how to balance your hormones through nutrition, exercise, managing stress, avoiding toxins and pollutants, and how some medications can affect your hormones. This is not a comprehensive or highly scientific guide, but it may be useful to those who know little to nothing about the topic.

She included 60 recipes (plant-based and mostly whole-food, minimally processed ingredients) for things like smoothies, juice, and other drinks, main meals, salads, soups, sides, snacks and desserts, nut butters, dressings, and dips. She also indicated what recipes are good for different times in your cycle. She often used greens that I'd never heard of before and (non-gluten) grains that are also pretty hard to find even when it comes to my health food store. While she did point out specific ingredients in each recipe that were good for hormone health (and why), it wasn't entirely clear if the other ingredients could be changed if the named one isn't available. I'll just assume they can be, though obviously it'll change the taste. Overall, I'd recommend this book to those who have PMS or irregular periods.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


Excerpt: Read an excerpt using Google Preview.