Your body and your body’s nutritional stores will supply the building blocks of life for your baby. Proper nutrition is essential for both you and your baby. Of all the factors you have control over before, during and after pregnancy, the food you place in your mouth and swallow may be the most important. What can you do before conception to prepare for all this? Hopefully you do not need to do much, but a few things warrant consideration.
Cook books and books on weight loss are often found at the top of the best-sellers’ lists. The vitamin and food supplements manufacturers enjoy a multi-billion-dollar-per-year industry. Our lust for health, youth and beauty are beyond reason and science. And that’s one of the problems with foods and nutrition……..a vacuum of science is quickly filled by the hype of those making millions of dollars off our fears and ignorance. How does one cut through all this garbage and ferret out the truth of sound nutrition?
Sound nutritional principles are not difficult to learn and understand. However, they are difficult to adhere to because of the temptation of junk foods. Modern grocery stores in the U.S. are usually designed with most of the essential foodstuffs on the edges, and all the processed foods in the middle aisles. Shop the edges…….the produce section, the dairy section, the breads (and the meat section sparingly)…..have a list for everything else, and try to avoid wandering down the aisles. When you can, avoid foods in packages, cans and boxes. Read labels…..make what-you-eat a major factor in your life. When you have the choice, “buy fresh” and “buy local”. Consider paying a few cents more for organic produce.
One extreme of the “food” industry has you eating puffed cheeseballs and carbonated softdrinks, while the other extreme is exploiting you with “natural” food products at a substantial price mark-up. Shop the edges….no food manufacturer can add hydrogenated coconut oil to a squash…….or add “natural” flavors to a carton of strawberries…….and carrots are full of natural antioxidants. Learn more about the way in which your diet is manipulated by those whose interest is the bottom line. Don’t be their sucker. Read labels…..and carefully consider the nutritional aspects of the things you swallow.