Skip to main content

Family Nutrition: Preg-Nutrition

I’ve heard it all.  I have to have McDonalds, Bojangles Bo-Berry Biscuits, Dairy Queen, Haagan Daaz, or a milkshake.  These are just a few things clients, friends and families need while pregnant and reward themselves with for creating a life in the womb.  Sounds really good doesn’t it and what the heck you need the extra calories because you are creating a life for Pete’s sake! What if I told you that your body only requires 300 additional calories a day when pregnant? That’s right, only 300 calories a day.  Are you shocked?

Focuses on food choices should be on folate which helps prevent neural tube defects and abnormalities with the brain and spinal cord.  Your body also needs calcium to provide strong bones and teeth for your child.  If you aren’t eating enough calcium for yourself, it will be stripped from your bones to provide for your child.  Iron is very important as well and basically you need adequate iron to make your child’s entire blood supply in addition to carrying oxygen to your own tissues.

Folate can be found in cereals, peanuts, oranges, spinach, and beans.  You’ll find your calcium in your dairy products such as milk, cheese, and yogurt and also in some of your fortified items like Tropicana Orange Juice with Calcium and cereals.  Iron is in your lean red meat, chicken, cereal, spinach, and beans.

Don’t like any of these foods and wonder if what you eat will really affect your baby?  A new study from the University of Southampton suggests a mother’s diet can actually alter the function of your child’s DNA.   Mother’s diet doesn’t alter DNA’s sequence but it can influence how your child responds to diet and exercise or create an epigenetic change. For the first time this study suggests that in addition to genetic and lifestyle there may be influences on your babies development as early in the womb which includes what you, the mother are eating.  When researchers reviewed 300 children and their epigenetic changes they were able to accurately predict the degree of obesity for children at six or nine years old.

So folks, next time you want to grab that Bo-Berry biscuit, snickers bar, or bag of Doritos look for a Chobani Yogurt, 1 ounce of low fat granola and a small Clementine instead.  This equals the 300 additional calories you need and provides the iron, calcium, and folate your body requires to keep your precious baby healthy.  Cheers to a healthy, happy pregnancy!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Food Trends: A note about Stevia (zero calorie sugar substitute)

We’re all on the lookout for that sugar substitute that withholds calories, tastes good, and is natural and safe.   Recently I was asked what my thoughts were on Stevia?   Well to tell you the truth I didn’t have many thoughts on the product because basically I didn’t know much about it, except that in my mind it was a zero calorie product that could be substituted for table sugar.   I put this thought in my attic with the hopes of getting more acquainted at a later time. As I get myself more familiar lets start with the derivation.   Stevia is an herb that comes from South America and has been used by the Guarani Indians of Paraguay for over 100 years.   This is advertised on the Stevia website along with a statement that it provides zero calories because the body doesn’t metabolize glycosides from the leaf or processed forms.   Essentially Stevia is absorbed by the gut and broken down into Stevol which is excreted from the body as a waste.   Th...
5 comments
Read more

Miraculous Misconceptions: Raspberry Ketones

The interwebs are abuzz about the supposedly “miraculous” Raspberry Ketone supplements. Raspberry Ketone popularity started with Dr. Oz's show in February 2012, when he nicknamed it a “miracle weight loss drug.” Some even credit Raspberry Ketones with stimulating hair growth, but for our purposes here, let’s talk about weight loss. Raspberry Ketones are derived from red raspberries. Proponents claim that the supplement will stimulate your metabolism causing weight loss. However, there are no reliable studies to prove this.   Specifically there is no scientific evidence to show how it alters metabolism to promote weight loss. There is also no scientific evidence to determine a proper dosage. If you find a study that claims otherwise, check the funding source. Most likely, that study was funded by a company who produces or funds raspberry ketone products. As far as I know, no major pharmaceutical companies are investing in Raspberry Ketone research. And it is my opinion ...
9 comments
Read more

Family Nutrition: What’s the deal with Multivitamins?

This is definitely one of my top ten questions from clients and frankly it’s a hard question because there isn’t a generic answer.   The internet and such stores as the Vitamin Shoppe and GNC continue to place a lot of focus on vitamins and minerals and some of my clients swear by their regimen.   I’ve even had some clients tell me they can tell a difference within hours of taking certain supplementations.    Since this is a subject I try to tame my responses too, I was very glad to see the article “Multivitamins, So Many Types, So Many Labels” by Melinda Beck in the Wall Street Journal published June 21, 2001.   Did you know that the multivitamin is the number one dietary supplement producing $4.8 billion back in 2008 and that one third of American’s take multivitamins religiously?   As Melinda points out there are many different varieties of multivitamins yet there is no specific formulation that specifies what a multivitamin should look like.  ...
4 comments
Read more