Honoring Our Roots: Healing Your Hormones Without Letting Go of the Foods You Love

You Don’t Have to Erase Your Culture to Heal Your Hormones

There’s a common misconception in the wellness world that healing your hormones requires expensive ingredients, strict food rules, or giving up the foods you grew up loving. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

Hormone balance isn’t about perfection or restriction. It’s about nourishment, consistency, and honoring the foods that have sustained generations before us.

Food Has Always Been Family for Me

Growing up, food was never just food — it was connection, tradition, and love.

Some of my favorite memories are from Christmas Day Dia de Los Muertos, standing in the kitchen with my family making tamales. The laughter, the stories, the teamwork — everyone had a role. It wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t stressful. It was grounding. Healing, even.

Birthday parties, holidays, and random weekends always centered around gathering together and cooking. Looking back now, I realize how powerful that was for my body and my hormones. Shared meals meant lower stress, joy, and a sense of belonging — all things that support hormone health in ways we don’t talk about enough.

Learning From My Grandma

So much of what I know about food didn’t come from textbooks — it came from watching my grandma cook.

I learned about ingredients by observing her hands, her patience, and her intuition. She didn’t measure macros or count calories. She cooked with intention, balance, and care. Beans simmering slowly. Vegetables prepared with love. Meals made to nourish the whole family.

Now, as a dietitian, I value food even more. I understand the science behind blood sugar, insulin, inflammation, and hormones — but I also understand that food is meant to heal, not punish.

Culture Is Nutrition Too

When I go to Mexico, the smells alone feel like medicine.

Freshly made tortillas warming on the comal.

Café de olla brewing with cinnamon.

Beans simmering in the olla.

Guacamole made in a molcajete.

These foods are often labeled as “unhealthy” or “problematic” — yet they’ve nourished communities for centuries. When prepared with balance and intention, they absolutely have a place in hormone-supportive eating.

You don’t need to eliminate tortillas, beans, or traditional dishes to support your hormones. In fact, these foods can help stabilize blood sugar, provide fiber, support gut health, and create emotional nourishment — all essential for hormone balance.

Healing Doesn’t Have to Be Expensive

You don’t need exotic powders, overpriced supplements, or trendy foods to heal.

Affordable, accessible ingredients — like beans, lentils, rice, corn, vegetables, healthy fats, and protein — can form the foundation of hormone-supportive meals.

The goal isn’t to replace your cultural foods. It’s to build meals intentionally:

* Pair carbohydrates with protein and fats

* Add vegetables where you can

* Honor hunger and fullness

Balance over perfection. Always.

Why I Chose to Build My Own Practice

This belief — that culture belongs in healing — is one of the biggest reasons I wanted to create my own nutrition practice.

I wanted a space where our culture is seen as beautiful, not something to "fix." A space where the foods we grew up with are recognized as nourishing, meaningful, and worthy of a seat at the table.

So often, nutrition advice feels disconnected from real life. It overlooks family traditions, cultural identity, and the simplicity of everyday foods. I knew I wanted to practice differently.

I believe our culture is powerful.

The foods we eat are nourishing.

And the simplicity of traditional meals — beans, tortillas, home-cooked dishes shared with loved ones — is beautiful.

You don’t need to complicate healing. You don’t need to abandon your roots to support your hormones. In fact, honoring them can be one of the most healing choices you make.

Food as Healing, Not Restriction

Healing your hormones doesn’t mean cutting out everything you love.

It means reconnecting with food in a way that feels safe, nourishing, and sustainable.

It means remembering that food has always been part of community, celebration, and care.

And sometimes, healing looks like sitting at the table with family, sharing a meal you grew up with, and trusting that your body knows how to receive nourishment when it’s given with love.

If you’re looking to support your hormones while honoring your culture, your roots, and your lived experience — you don’t have to choose one or the other.