The Fertility Diet, Eating for Two, And Baby's First Food
by Nina Planck
288 pages
Health/Food, Nutrition
Bloomsbury USA (March 31, 2009)
Nina Planck is an amazing food activist who believes in making good choices about eating. Her previous book Real Food gets rave reviews everywhere. This is a follow up, for those who are trying to get pregnant, those who are pregnant and it even shares ideal first foods. It is full of really interesting information and Nina Planck is a food nutrition guru. Her basic premise is that whole foods are best- however it may shatter some of your current thoughts on what is okay (or even good) to eat.
I haven't read her first book Real Food, but I love the whole food and real food concept. However, this book was a hard one for me. I just couldn't get over that she seemed too opinionated and sure of all that she was saying even when it really didn't seem to sit right with me. I have some examples that threw me off: she condones drinking alcohol while pregnant, saying sometimes she even drank more than a glass of wine a day, but she says it is not good to be a vegetarian while pregnant. That to me seems waky. Yes, crazy. I don't know if it was wrong, but after I read that I had a hard time taking in her logic and ideas in the same way.
Overall it does hold really interesting information, but I just couldn't get over the fact that she pretty much seemed to just want to push what she felt like eating or not eating on the rest of us. Oh, and yes there is plenty of liver to boot. I guess if you love wine and liver and don't want to give up anything while you are pregnant- this is your book. This is a grouchy take on it, I know. I just fear that when something is proven negative- to even guess at how much you and/or your baby can handle and still make it out okay, it is just crazy. Yes I am hung up on that.
3 comments:
I can understand the vegetarian thing, just in terms of now getting enough protein and certain vitamins (some of the B series, I think) that are generally only found in meat.
As for the wine, a quick google with the subject "wine pregnancy" turned up a whole bunch of results on this topic. Recent studies are saying that up to 2-3 glasses of wine a week won't harm your baby -- in fact, one study says that such may help with a healthier pregnancy. Who knew!
Obviously this is not to say that you can drink heavily during a pregnancy and everything will be hunky-dory. But it looks like responsible, moderate drinking may actually be a-ok (though of course, subject to every mother's individual discretion).
I'd be curious to know if there were any references included in the book to back up her theories- or was it all just her personal opinion of what's good to eat?
Yess the book has lots of references
and it is really not vegetarian diets she is after but vegan diets
You can be a healthy veggie if you eat eggs and/or dairy - supplement with fish oil.
About the wine- she does write that ine is NOT goos the first 3 months and very moderate consumption is best after that.
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