From the pregnancy tracking app to the OB/GYN office, it seems there is a common theme regarding prenatal nutrition: Thou shalt have 300 extra calories per day, apparently. Well, at first glance, it seems easy enough. However, upon thinking about it further, it has to be a bunch of BS. After all, there is absolutely ZERO nutritional value in a calorie. A calorie, by definition, is simply a unit of energy, or heat. So, it bears repeating: THERE IS NO NUTRITIONAL VALUE IN A CALORIE. Therefore the 300 extra calories per day recommendation is crap. Were it true, all you would have to do to meet this requirement is:
- Eat slightly over 6 tablespoons of refined sugar, or
- Drink ¼ cup of gasoline, or
- Pound 2 beers, or 3 shots of liquor
Obviously I’m not recommending that anyone do this. I’m simply making the point that we need more clarity on what the recommended caloric intake should consist of, nutritionally. Babies are not made of calories, they’re made of proteins and fats. Therefore, what we really need, as prenatal parents, are NUTRIENT recommendations for building a better baby. So I did a bit of homework. Having studied nutrition for the last 10+ years, what I found (not surprisingly) was that the vast majority of information on prenatal nutrition out there is woefully inadequate, based on horrible pseudoscience, and, in fact, should at least be considered negligent if not outright criminal, in my opinion.
Humans have been cranking out healthy new humans for 300,000 years or so. It wasn’t until relatively recently in human history that chronic diseases became widespread epidemics. So, what did our ancestors do that we have forgotten or talked ourselves out of? Well, for starters, they ate real food. Whole food. Not processed food-like packaged products. They ate meat, and lots of it, plus seasonal fruits and veggies. They ate good, solid proteins and fats with limited carbs from whole foods, so that’s what Cam and I are doing. Here’s what I consider to be some of the best recommendations for eating while pregnant.
We need to stop thinking about nutrition in terms of calories. A calorie is not a calorie. If it were, I should be able to drink a cup of diesel fuel every morning and meet my caloric needs for the day. Quality matters, especially when we’re talking about developing the healthiest baby possible!
