
Breastcancer.org is proud to present recipes from The Family Dinner: Great Ways to Connect with Your Kids, One Meal at a Time by Laurie David and Kirstin Uhrenholdt (Grand Central Life & Style, 2010). Laurie is a very special friend and champion of Breastcancer.org. We’re pleased to share Laurie and Kirstin’s delicious, healthy recipes as part of Think Pink, Live Green!
Breakfast is important. Who can concentrate with a noisy tummy? Who can learn if their brain is craving nutrition? Who has time to make a breakfast that is healthy, full of vitamins, fiber, and protein? You do!
Just keep these few ingredients in your pantry and freezer, then you can start the day off right with a tasty power shake to feed the body, warm the heart, and free the mind from snack attacks until it’s time for lunch.
You Need:
½ banana (potassium, vitamins, and love)
½ cup frozen blueberries (a superfood with vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants!)
¼ teaspoon cinnamon ( to help metabolize sugar and both anti-oxidant, anti fungal, and anti-inflammatory)
1 tablespoon ground flax seeds for adults (1/2-1 teaspoons for little kids; 1-2 teaspoons for big kids), for your heart and brain, for fiber and omegas
1 cup 2% milk, almond or soy milk (for calcium and protein)
2 tablespoons peanut or almond butter; do make sure to get the kind without any additives like sugar (for antioxidants, minerals, protein, and power)
To make 1 serving:
Just put everything into the blender, hit the switch, let it run until smooth.
Cooks tip: After you have gotten into the habit of drinking these, be bold, add a small handful spinach or kale as well, blend well and all you will taste is a new vigor for life.
This is an awesome recipe. The only thing I would change is I would leave out soy. My breast cancer team of doctors have advised me strongly not to eat soy. Soy can cause out bodies to produce estrogen. Estrogen will fuel a breast cancer cell or lump. Check labels on everything. Salad dressings, sauces have soybean oil, etc.
I am so surprised that you; being a breast cancer website; would not only endorse but promote “The Family Dinner: Great Ways to Connect with Your Kids, One Meal at a Time by Laurie David and Kirstin Uhrenholdt (Grand Central Life & Style, 2010). Laurie is a very special friend and champion of Breastcancer.org. We’re pleased to share Laurie and Kirstin’s delicious, healthy recipes as part of Think Pink, Live Green!”
How can she be a champion of breastcancer.org knowing that soy is so controversial. Some doctors prohibit ingesting soy all together due to the hormone positive breast cancers.
Doctors should be reviewing the content before it’s posted. We cannot send mixed messages to the women out there. There are several women who do not have any other source for education other than your site. I found your site very informative while I was going through my battle. In fact, it is the best website out there but endorsing someone who recommends soy milk was a true disappointment.
We understand that some women may be cautious about soy consumption, since soy contains substances called isoflavones, which may act like estrogen in the body. This may be of a particular concern for people who have estrogen-receptor-positive breast cancer. In that situation, you want to avoid anything that might stimulate the receptors, possibly leading to extra cell growth.
The safety or dangers of soy are not well understood. But four things are reassuring:
1) Isoflavones only have a weak estrogen-like effect (much weaker than your body’s natural estrogens).
2) There are only low levels of isoflavones in unprocessed soy foods (like soy milk, edamame [soy beans], and tofu [a curd of soy milk]).
3) Soy also contains proteins that may help maintain normal cell growth and activity.
4) People living in Asia who depend on soy foods for their protein tend to have low levels of breast cancer (this is in part due to their other healthy habits, like being at a healthy weight, staying physically active, consuming minimal amounts of alcohol, not smoking).
We also know that hormones work in very complicated ways. Very low doses can have a different — even opposite — effect compared to high doses of the same hormones.
Even less is known about the possible impact soy may have on the risk of breast cancer recurrence in women who have been diagnosed with estrogen-receptor-positive breast cancer. Studies are inconclusive. Many doctors recommend only moderate consumption of soy foods, as part of a balanced diet, and avoidance of highly concentrated soy supplements (such as those found in powders and capsules) because of their high isoflavone concentrations.
The recipe lists other options if you wish to avoid soy products.
To learn more about soy and hormone-receptor-positive breast cancers, see our Soy page in Breastcancer.org’s Nutrition section.