Culinarian Vanessa Riley is now certified to help others through menopause, specifically through the use of food as their pathway to healthier lifestyles and menopausal wellness. Riley is a certified MenoChef.
MenoChef is a program that offers an approach to help people navigate the challenges of menopause through food, health, and nutrition.
The program is designed to aid with menopause symptom management through mindful eating – nutritional requirements for optimal performance, meal planning for sustained energy, and stress management and work-life balance.
“My MenoChef training really is helping me to understand, first, what’s happening to me, and then being able to translate that into what I eat and what I cook,” said Riley.
In turn, her goal is to equip women with healthy food habits that she says help with alleviating menopause symptoms.
Riley said Bahamians do not focus on nutrients nearly enough as they should.
“We don’t focus on nutrition at all. We eat for mouth-feel, and a lot of us eat for comfort. All our issues, depression, hormonal, stress … we go to our go-to: sugar. There’s an instant need for something to calm the nerves.”
According to the chef, the foods women of all ages, particularly those experiencing menopause, should incorporate more into their diet include healthy fats, lean proteins, whole grains and fiber, calcium-rich foods and green tea.
“For lean proteins, this would be your chicken breast. The most important thing for us at this stage of our life is getting that estrogen back through phytoestrogens, and we get that through plant protein – so, that’s your chickpeas, beans, chia seeds, flax seeds. You can also have fish [salmon or any fish], sardines and mackerel [fresh, not canned].”
And she recommends using avocado oil and extra virgin olive oil.
Riley also encourages eating more fiber to keep the gut biome healthy, as well as adding more vegan and vegetarian foods to the diet for even more nutrients.
“Here’s the thing I’m learning about food and eating for this time of my life: everything is balance. You need the fiber. You get your oats, quinoa, things like that, that bring in fiber in your diet, include them. Focus on phytoestrogen because they mimic estrogen in the body. You can find them in plants. Our diet needs to be: 50 percent of the plate needs to be green, the other 30 percent needs to be vegetables and your fiber, and the smallest amount needs to be protein,” she said.
Riley said the focus should be plant protein to replace estrogen.
“If estradiol is the main loss, and all these things happen because we’re losing estrogen, we can get it back with food, which means we can change the quality of our lives by what we eat.”
Riley said Bahamians constantly complain about the high cost of eating healthy, but she reminds that it is costlier to have to pay for medical care.
“Being sick costs more. Having surgery to deal with issues costs more than eating properly,” she said.
She encourages people to try to age well, so that they age gracefully.
The chef reminded mothers that they can have an impact on their household. And that once they start to make healthier choices, it can create a trickle-down effect.
“If you begin to eat healthy, you change the dynamic in a household. So, now, you’re getting your daughters eating better earlier.”
Riley said she is constantly sounding the message of eating better, taking vitamins, and exercising.
In addition to healthy foods, Riley also recommends weight management, incorporating movement, staying hydrated, and mindful eating – including mindfulness when shopping for groceries.
“If you don’t start [exercising] when you’re young, it’s very difficult when you’re dealing with menopause symptoms to be motivated to go and work out. But even if you just walk around your house, doing housework, all these things are helping us to get in more movement.”
The key to eating mindfully, she said, starts with control. After that, everything will fall into place.
“And we all know, once you feel better, you start to move more.”
Her advice to people is to focus on planning ahead, so hunger does not lead to overeating.
“Only eat when you’re hungry. We train our bodies to want what it wants, and we keep giving it what it wants, but that’s not necessarily the best thing for us,” said Riley.
She said too many people give their body what their mouth feels like because their tastebuds control most of their lives, not what is needed for the body.
“So, this really is about shifting the thinking on food and the way you see food.”
Riley suggested people opt to seek long-term nutritional support, seek professional guidance when needed, and find out as much as they can to sustain a healthy eating journey.
It all coalesced for Riley after she had a perimenopause-related surgery. One day, post-surgery, while listening to a radio show, she said a guest spoke about food being medicine as the moment she came to the realization that she could make the dietary changes she needed. She said she realized that what people put into their mouths is either healing or hurting them. And that led to her seeking MenoChef certification.
Riley received her MenoChef license and certification in 2025 from MenoChef, a brand owned by Menopause Experts Group UK, which focuses on food, diet, and nutrition, to educate and empower others during perimenopause, menopause and andropause (male menopause).
The chef spoke at a discussion on menopause hosted by Dr. Ebbie Jackson, optometrist, and breast cancer survivor. Jackson said she noticed she had been having frequent conversations with the women in her life about symptoms they had been experiencing.
Jackson’s cancer treatment pushed her into early menopause. She said that forced her to start noticing symptoms that would not obviously seem menopausal.
According to the medical community, menopause is the natural, permanent end of menstruation and fertility, typically occurring between ages 45 and 55 (average age 51–52), due to declining estrogen. Menopause is officially confirmed when a woman has gone 12 consecutive months without seeing a menstrual period.
There are three stages: perimenopause, which can occur 10 years before a woman’s final period; menopause, which is when the period ends; and post-menopause, the years that follow.
Symptoms vary from woman to woman, but include hot flashes; night sweats; insomnia or disrupted sleep; irritability, anxiety or depression; vaginal dryness, skin dryness, discomfort during sex, reduced libido, weight gain, thinning hair; and brain fog or difficulty concentrating.
Women are reminded that menopause is not a disease; it is just a transition from one phase of life into the next.
