Pregnancy Food Diary: Twenty Four Weeks

If you're new to this series, go here to read the introduction and prior posts!

Food Diary from Wednesday, January 25

Breakfast: 1.5 eggs with onion, ham, and broccoli cooked in butter and coconut oil, one piece of part-whole grain bread with butter, kombucha, black tea with raw milk and honey
Snack: a banana

Lunch: brown rice pasta with canned salmon, homemade tomato sauce, spinach, broccoli, olive oil and parmesan, salad with feta, olives, and homemade vinaigrette, small piece of part-whole grain toast with butter, pregnancy tea
Snack: Chai Teeccino with cream, soaked zucchini bread with butter
Dinner: pinto beans refried in palm shortening, quesadillas made with corn tortillas and cheese, guacamole, sour cream, salsa, and tortilla chips
Snack: Homemade yogurt with homemade peach jam, zucchini bread with butter

How did I do?
(the recommended # of servings of each food is in parentheses)

Protein:  4 (4)

Eggs: 1.5 (2)

Dairy: 3 (4) 

Butter: 5 (3)
Whole Grains: 4 (2)
Refined Grains: 1 (0)
Veggies: 4 (3-4)
Greens: 2 (2)

Fruit: 1.5 (1)
Citrus: 0 (1)

Probiotic Foods: 4 (4) 


Note: I'm changing that last category from "fermented foods" to "probiotic foods", because there are foods - like raw milk - that are not fermented or cultured yet contain beneficial bacteria and enzymes that aid in digestion. I don't just want to eat food, I want to digest it!


What counts as a Probiotic Food?
From the food diary above, I am counting kombucha, raw milk, sour cream, and yogurt as probiotic. Other examples are kefir, raw cheese, and lacto-fermented fruits, vegetables, and condiments.

Are you pregnant? What are you eating to nourish yourself and your baby? What do you wish you were eating more or less of?

This is part of Monday Mania.

Two (Cheap) Thermometers to Save Your Baking

I love when spending just a few dollars makes life so much easier. Here are two pieces of kitchen equipment that won't break the bank and will help your baking become more successful and consistent.

#1 An instant read thermometer
I have sliced into way too many loaves of underdone bread. If I had friends partaking of the bread, they often said they didn't mind and gladly ate a mushy slice or two. I've never been good at the tap test; you know, the one where you tap and see if it "sounds hollow" or not? Come on. And I certainly can't tell from the outside whether a loaf is done. Often the top will be edging on too dark an the inside is still doughy. Super. Annoying.

So finally... I got myself a thermometer.

All you need is an "instant read" thermometer. Mine looks a lot like this one, which is going for $4.43 on amazon. As long as it goes up to 190 F, you're good. When you think your bread might be done, take it out of the oven and stick the thermometer right into the middle, about halfway down. If it reads 190 or higher, you're good. If not, keep cookin'! (And you can tent the bread loosely with foil if the top is getting to dark before the center is done.)

Now wasn't that easy?

#2 An oven thermometer
Being a renter, I don't have much control over the quality of my appliances. For a couple years in a couple different apartments I thought I was just terrible at baking, because baked goods would either burn long before they were supposed to be done, or take much longer to cook than the recipe said. It was so frustrating!

So finally... I got myself a thermometer. Again.

But this time it was an oven thermometer. (That one is going for $2.77 on Amazon.) You just hang it on an oven rack and it tells you what temperature it is in there. It turns out my current oven runs 50-75 degrees hotter than it should. Who knows what was going on in my previous ovens, but I'm glad to know what's going on in this one! Now I can adjust the temperature accordingly. It's also helpful to be able to peek inside and know if the oven is preheated yet. AND, no more guesswork if I'm trying to dehydrate something, and I don't want to go above a certain temperature. Baking has been much more successful since I spent those three dollars at Meijer.

What inexpensive kitchen gadgets that have saved the day in your kitchen?

This is part of Kitchen Tip Tuesday, Real Food Wednesday and Pennywise Platter Thursday.

Pregnancy Food Diary: Twenty-Three Weeks (Travel Edition)

If you missed it, go here for the link to all the posts in my Pregnancy Food Diary Series!

This is what I ate last Saturday. I was out of town, staying with my parents after returning from a trip to visit family in California. I wasn't at home with all my normal foods, but I did what I could. :) (Man was I missing the kombucha and raw milk!)

Food diary for Saturday, January 21

Breakfast: Organic plain fat-free yogurt mixed with Daisy sour cream (to simulate whole milk yogurt in its absence), with honey, blueberries, and homemade granola (I had packed some from home), half a cup of coffee with half-and-half.

Lunch (we went out to a breakfast-all-day place): Eggs Benedict with spinach and bacon on an english muffin with hash browns, some crepes with lingon berries (we split these 5 ways and everyone had a taste. What a delicious treat!), a bit of freshly squeezed orange juice

Snack: whole-grain toast with natural peanut butter and honey, yerba chai with half and half, piece of cheese

Dinner: chicken with homemade peanut sauce, carrots, and broccoli over whole wheat pasta

Snack: part-whole-grain pumpkin bread (made with coconut oil and sucanat - thanks Mom!)

How did I do?
(the recommended # of servings of each food is in parentheses)

Protein:  3.5 (4)

Eggs: 2 (2)

Dairy: 3 (4) 

Butter: 1 (3)
Whole Grains: 3.5 (2)
Refined Grains: 1.5 (0)
Veggies: 3 (3-4)
Greens: 1 (2)

Fruit: 1.5 (1)
Citrus: 0.5 (1)

Fermented Foods: 1 (3)


More about this day...
It's hard to find fermented foods on vacation. All I managed was a little yogurt.

I'm counting freshly squeezed orange juice as a half a serving of fruit. Whole fruit is always better than juice, but I couldn't pass up the freshly squeezed stuff! When you do drink juice, it's important to have it with plenty of fat and protein to keep your blood sugar from spiking. I'm hoping the Hollandaise sauce on my eggs was made with real butter... :)

I've been craving green veggies like crazy, so I was grateful for the spinach on my eggs and the broccoli in the dinner my parents made!

How am I doing on my goals?
I was out of town all week, so I didn't do too great on some of these goals.

1) Get to bed earlier. 
With the exception of travel days, I didn't do too bad on this. But I'm hoping to get into more of a routine now that I'm back home!


2) Take supplements throughout the day. 
I've mentioned before that I have trouble remembering to take my vitamins except at bedtime. I'm working on taking them with each meal, instead of all at once. I'm getting better! Soon I'll share with you what supplements I take during pregnancy.

3) Drink pregnancy tea.
Two cups yesterday! Recipe coming soon!


4) Make (almost) all grains soaked, sprouted, or soured.
My Grandma did have some sprouted bread with flaxseed that I tried to eat whenever I had bread, and I packed granola from home, but other than that my grains were either whole and not soaked or sprouted, or refined. And how can you pass up your German Grandmother's stollen!?


5) Eat those greens!
I tried to find greens even on travel days: I had a mixed green salad with my burger (from a sustainable Burger place at the San Francisco airport...gotta love California!), and I ordered spinach on my pizza at O'Hare (it was either pizza or McDonalds when we arrived hungry at 9 PM). I was pleasantly surprised that it was absolutely loaded with spinach!


Are you pregnant? What are you eating to nourish yourself and your baby? And how do you manage to eat well while traveling?

This is part of Monday Mania, Simple Lives Thursday, and Fight Back Friday.

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Garlic Sesame Naan: a soaked whole grain recipe

I don't think this naan is necessarily traditional, but it sure is tasty! It is surprisingly light and fluffy for being almost all whole wheat! 


I adapted the recipe from this one I found on the King Arthur Flour site. I added more whole grain flour, extra sesame seeds, and thought some minced garlic would be a nice upgrade. I also adapted it for soaking, which makes it even more nutritious because it allows your body to absorb more of the nutrients found in the whole grains. I'm going to try a sourdough version next, which is even healthier than a bread made with store-bought yeast. But my starter needs a little lovin' before I can attempt that!

Recipe notes:  
--You can use traditional whole wheat flour instead of the white whole wheat, but they will probably be a bit heavier and darker.
--Feel free to increase the sesame seeds and garlic to taste. 
--If you don't have whey, I bet water would work fine. But whey is easy to make: just strain some plain whole milk yogurt through cheesecloth to make a thickened Greek-style yogurt, or strain longer to make cream cheese. The remaining liquid is whey and is great for soaking grains or stirring into soups. If you have any foodie friends who are into cultured dairy, they might just have some extra whey lying around that they're willing to share with you. :)

Garlic Sesame Naan

(whole grain, soaked)
makes 8-10 small loaves

ingredients:

3 cups White Whole Wheat Flour
3 tablespoons butter, melted
3/4 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup whey
2 teaspoons yeast
1 large egg
1/2 cup Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons sesame seeds
3 cloves minced garlic

method:

Gently warm the yogurt and ¼ c. whey. Whisk in the melted butter. Add to mixing bowl with whole wheat flour. Allow to soak in warm place 7-24 hours.


After soaking time, gently warm the remaining ¼ c. whey, and dissolve yeast in it. (If you have instant yeast, you can add the liquid and yeast directly to the mixing bowl without dissolving first.) Add it to the soaked mixture along with the egg.


Whisk together white flour, salt, baking powder, and sesame seeds. Add to soaked mixture. Add chopped garlic. Knead by hand or with dough hook of stand mixer until it is smooth and stretchy, only adding a little more white flour if necessary to keep from sticking. 


Put the dough into a greased bowl, cover, and set it aside to rise for about 1 1/2 hours, or until it's about doubled in bulk. 


Divide the dough into 8-10 pieces, and roll and/or stretch each piece into rustic circle about 1/8 inch thick. Let the pieces rest while you heat an iron skillet to medium high heat. Cook each one about 2-3 minutes on the first side, until if puffs slightly and the bottom is nicely browned. Flip over and finish cooking. Keep warm in a tea towel while you cook the remaining pieces. Serve warm, brushed with melted butter. (Or just rub the warm naan with a stick of butter.)




We ate ours with this delicious spinach dhal. We have a tradition of eating lentils after a holiday or any time we feel we need a little cleansing. Steven said as we were eating this dhal, “This might be our new cleansing meal!” We at the leftover naan as pizza: spread with sauce, topped with sausage, mushrooms, olives, and cheese, and baked until hot and melty. It made a delicious and easy meal! 


This is part of Real Food Wednesday, Pennywise Platter Thursday, and Simple Lives Thursday. 

Pregnancy Food Diary: Twenty-Two Weeks

Here is what I ate last Thursday:

Breakfast: scrambled eggs, bacon, sourdough toast with butter, Earl Grey tea with raw cream and honey, kombucha

Snack: half cheese stick (the toddler at the first half), a few slices of an orange

Lunch: a baked potato topped with white bean and chicken chili, sour cream, and cheese, salad with lettuce, onion, cranberries and walnuts with homemade balsamic vinaigrette

Snack: half of a homemade cinnamon roll (definitely made with real butter!), glass of milk, decaf coffee with milk

Dinner: Clam and Oyster Chowder, sourdough corn muffins with butter and honey

Snack: apple, half a "honey wheat" bagel with cream cheese


How did I do?
(the recommended # of servings of each food is in parentheses)

Protein:  3.5 (4)

Eggs: 2 (2)

Dairy: 4 (4) 

Butter: 3 (3)
Whole Grains: 2 (2)
Refined Grains: 1.5 (0)
Veggies: 3 (3-4)
Greens: 1 (2)

Fruit: 1.5 (1)

Citrus: 0.5 (1) 

Fermented Foods: 2 (3) (kombucha and sour cream)

It's hard to know what a serving is. Mostly I just guess.

More about this day...

--I was going to make a salad for dinner but ran out of energy. It would have been nice if I'd pre-washed my lettuce.

--Our good friend brought over the most delicious cinnamon rolls. I've been enjoying them immensely, though trying not to eat them all at once. Caedmon and I shared one after he woke up from his nap as a "special treat." Caedmon kept saying "more...treat" as I was giving him bites. :)

--I put "honey wheat"in quotes because that was a store-bought pseudo-whole-grain bagel that was supposed to be a treat for Steven while I'm gone. (I'm in California right now visiting my Grandma!) But we accidentally ate them all before I left. Mostly him, but I definitely indulged. Bagels have been in my top five favorite foods (along with cinnamon rolls) since childhood. Some things never change.

--Clam and Oyster chowder is a nutritional powerhouse, so I don't feel so bad about my shortfalls on
this day! Clams are the highest source of iron you can find, and oysters are the highest source of zinc!  I don't really like oysters (at least the canned variety, I've never had fresh) but even I can put up with them in this delicious soup.

How am I doing on my goals?
Last week I posted a few wellness goals. So here's how I've done in the last week:


1) Get to bed earlier. 

I'm writing this at 11 PM, so clearly I'm not doing the best on going to bed early. But I've been traveling and that messes everything up. I'll try to get into a better rhythm when I return home!

2) Take supplements throughout the day.
I'm doing better with this but not ideal. I'm so forgetful! I always remember right before I go to bed.

3) Drink pregnancy tea.
I only made it once in the last week. Oops. But I made 4 cups and drank it over two days.

4) Make (almost) all grains soaked, sprouted, or soured.
I baked bread, naan (recipe coming later this week!), corn muffins, apple crisp, and quiche last week. And they were all soaked our soured. Yay! I also made soaked oatmeal and ate whole wheat sourdough bread from Trader Joe's. So I think my only exceptions have been the bagels and cinnamon rolls. :)

5) Eat those greens!
I have had some really good days of 2-3 servings of greens, and days like today with none. I'm trying to be more consistent!


If you are pregnant, what are you eating? I'd love to hear about it!

Pregnancy Food Diary: Twenty One Weeks

Welcome to the first installment of my Pregnancy Food Diary! Every Monday, I'm going to tell you what I ate one day the the previous week. I'm intentionally not choosing my best day to share with you. This day wasn't terrible, but it wasn't ideal either. I'm a real person, too!

Wednesday, January 4 

Breakfast: French Toast Frittata, Yerba Chai with raw milk
Lunch: Pinto beans, quesadilla (cheese on a whole wheat tortilla), guacamole, organic blue corn chips, salsa, kombucha
Dinner: Beef stew, whole grain bread with butter
Dinner #2: Brown rice pasta with cream sauce and broccoli
Snack: Homemade yogurt with homemade peach jam, sprouted toast with almond butter

(I ate my first dinner at 4:45 before going to teach, and my second dinner after I got home at 7:30. I was still quite hungry afterwards, so I had a couple snacks before bed.)

Servings (with recommended amt. in parenthesis):

Protein: 4 (4)

Eggs: 1.5 (2)

Dairy: 2.5 (4) 

Butter: 2 (3)
Grains: 4 (2)
Veggies: 2(3-4)
Greens: 0 (2)

Fruit: 0.5 (1)

Citrus: 0 (1) 

And I'm adding an additional category: 

Fermented Foods: 2 (3)

Truthfully, I didn't feel too great on this day. I slept in til 9:30, had a headache, and didn't get anything done all morning. The day did get progressively better, though. I attribute it to two things: first, I've been having half-caff coffee most mornings, but I didn't on Wednesday. Second, I didn't get quite enough protein early in the day. I'm still working on figuring out what my body needs. I've been working on doing a few things each day to increase my chances of feeling better.

Wellness Goals

1) Get to bed earlier.
Caedmon hasn't been sleeping very well. Thankfully daddy has been doing most of the nighttime duty these days because he has a lighter schedule for a couple weeks. But nights have not been very restful around here. We're working on getting Caedmon to bed earlier, and I'm working on getting myself to bed earlier too. I'm hoping that will help Caedmon and I rise at a more decent hour.

2) Take supplements throughout the day.
I often forget to take my vitamins until bedtime. Better than not at all, but I know it would be better for me if I took them throughout the day. My prenatal vitamins require three a day, which makes it easy to take one per meal, if I remember. I'm also taking three cod liver oil capsules per day (I know I could take more than this, but it is expensive!), so on a good day I take one per meal of those, too. My iron supplement is two times per day, ideally 30 minutes before a meal. I'm aiming to take that while I cook breakfast and again while I cook dinner.

3) Drink pregnancy tea.
I have a homemade pregnancy tea that I've been drinking sporadically (I'll post the recipe soon). Now that I'm over halfway to my due date, I'm going to try to get more serious about this. It is high in minerals, it helps tone the uterus for labor, and I always feel better when I drink it.

4) Make (almost) all grains soaked, sprouted, or soured.
The holidays and pregnancy fatigue have gotten me out of the habit of baking my own bread. Most of the time we eat sourdough or sprouted bread from Trader Joes, but not always. I also haven't been soaking things like rice or oatmeal 100% of the time. I'm pretty relaxed about it, but I know eating my whole grains properly prepared means more nutrients for my baby and myself.

5) Eat those greens!
This is the hardest category for me to keep up with, probably because it takes a little bit of extra work. I do best when I eat some cooked greens in the morning and then a salad with lunch or dinner. A couple days ago I washed and cut up a bunch of Swiss chard so I could saute it easily in the morning.  Throwing some frozen spinach into eggs or soup is also an easy option.

I'll be sure to let you know how I'm doing!

This is part of Monday Mania.

My Pregnancy Food Diary: Introduction

(source)

Eating well during pregnancy is hard.

Before I got pregnant with my first child, I thought it was a no-brainer. Of course I'd want to eat as healthfully as possible and avoid the junk that wouldn't nourish his growing body or mine. But it's not always that simple. You're tired, nauseous, achy, and dealing with the demands of normal life on top of being pregnant. You may want to eat well, but it's a different thing entirely to follow through on that desire. Though I've eaten mostly well during both my pregnancies, I confess to a few frozen pizzas, a couple trips to Subway, and one excursion to fulfill an intense fried chicken craving. During my first trimester of both pregnancies, there have been a couple stretches during which I ate little more than french toast and crackers and cheese. Not exactly a diverse diet of super foods. :)

I make much better food choices when I do two things: 1) plan meals ahead of time, and 2) write down what I've actually eaten.

I discovered the second one while spending a week recording everything I ate on a worksheet provided by my (amazing) midwife. It included a handy checklist at the bottom of each day to help you make sure you're getting enough of various foods. I realized that I was eating a lot better just because I knew I'd be writing down what I ate!

So I'm going to start sharing my food diary with you. My goal is to post each Monday with the foods I've eaten one day during the prior week. It will motivate me to make good choices about what I eat, and it will motivate you to eat well, pregnant or not!

Every week I'll let you know how I'm doing according to these guidelines given to me by my midwife. Here are the recommended number of servings of various foods:

Protein: 4

Eggs: 2

Dairy: 4 

Butter: 3
Grains: 2
Veggies: 3-4
Greens: 2

Fruit: 1

Citrus: 1

Here is what I like about these numbers:

1. They show the importance of protein and healthy fat during pregnancy.

2. They emphasize nutrient dense foods, like eggs, dairy, butter, vegetables, greens, and citrus.

3. They do not over-emphasize the role of grains in the diet, which should be eaten in moderation even if whole and properly prepared. 

4. They keep fruit in balance, which, though nutritious, is high in natural sugars and should be eaten in moderation.

Those might be different than recommendations you've seen elsewhere for what to eat during pregnancy. And that's precisely why I like them. At my first visit to the OB with my first pregnancy, the nurse practitioner handed me a food pyramid and told me all I needed to do was add a little more calcium to my diet (but definitely not by consuming raw milk!). Of course there was no mention of avoiding processed foods, trans fats, refined vegetable oils, or white flour and sugar, and including nutrient dense animal foods and vegetables into my diet. But I've learned a few things along the way about what is important to eat and avoid. And I'm excited to share them with you! I'm still learning and I'd love to hear from you about what you think it's important to eat (or not eat) during pregnancy.

What do you think about these dietary recommendations? Would you add or change anything based on your knowledge of nutrition during pregnancy?

On Monday I'll post the first entry in my food diary, along with some info about why I'm eating what I'm eating. See you then!

This is part of Fight Back Friday.