Gettin’ Real About Food & Health for Breastfeeding For women new to the world of breastfeeding
Location: Virtual! Wherever you are.
Date: April 3, 2012
Time: 8:00pm ET Can’t make it? That’s ok. A recording of the call will be sent along with PDF materials to everyone who registers, so you can listen later.
When I was pregnant, I took a breastfeeding class.
Which was really hilarious. They had a stuffed boob to demonstrate. Let’s be clear. No one will ever be able to learn to breastfeed from a stuffed boob. It’s really a learn-on-the-job thing.
And while you and your baby fumble around and learn what’s what, you’re going to be hungry. Really hungry. And probably pretty tired. And I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some tears. It’s normal, and beautiful, but you might not notice the beautiful part in the beginning.
So on this call we’re going to talk about nutrition in an easy-to-understand way. A way you can implement even in those early, sleep deprived days.
I’m also going to get real with you about nursing a baby. Why it’s awesome and why it can sometimes be hard, and why it’s so rewarding.
There hasn’t been a whole lot of baking going on around here lately. I burned a couple batches of Christmas cookies back in December and I think that was about it. Mostly I’ve found it hard to keep little fingers away from the kitchen cabinets and dishwasher. I really don’t need a hot oven in the mix!
Other places little fingers end up:
Pinched in drawers
In my mouth
Up my nose
In the toilet
Poking the hole in a raspberry
Pointing at every screw in every piece of furniture like it’s the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen
Gettin’ Real About Food & Health for Pregnancy For women considering and already pregnant
Location: Virtual! Wherever you are.
Date: March 27, 2012
Time: 8:00pm ET Can’t make it? That’s ok. A recording of the call will be sent along with PDF materials to everyone who registers, so you can listen later.
There are a lot of things no one tells you when you’re pregnant.
And sometimes, they tell you too much! Like exactly how many grams of protein you need per day. Or that you should only gain 25 lbs. or else you risk all kinds of complications. Or that you need 47 tests and screenings performed on your 10 week old fetus.
Of course we want to be healthy during our pregnancies. But let’s cut through the blah blah blah and get real.
For instance, there were days when I could only stomach raspberries and chocolate pudding. Really.
On this call we’re going to talk about nutrition in an easy-to-understand way.
I’m also going to give an overview of your choices when it comes to prenatal care – an essential piece of your healthy pregnancy.
A few weeks ago I was talking about natural remedies for sinus infections and many people responded with the idea of eating raw garlic – nature’s antibiotic. I loved that input, as (on my friend Hannah’s recommendation) I had been giving Danny garlic oil in his ears for weeks to treat and prevent ear infections.
If you’ve ever had an ear infection, or if your child has ever had one, you know they can be insanely painful. The worst.
Danny had one a few months ago and now every time he’s a little upset I bring him to the doctor to assure myself that his ears look fine. I want one of those ear-looky tools so I can look myself! Can you buys those…?
Anyway, doctors seem mixed in their use of antibiotics for ear infections. The doctor we saw prescribed them, and I felt desperate to do anything and everything I could to get the kid better! But I also gave him garlic oil, in addition to the meds. Now, my game plan is prevention.
Working from home has unique challenges, as any home-office employee knows. But I always thought this would be the best setup for raising kids. After all, there aren’t many options. You can be a stay-at-home-mom and survive on 1 income in a world priced for dual income families. Or you can go back to work and pay the majority of your salary to daycare.
Or you can, gulp, work from home.
I’m not complaining because it’s still my top choice. Everyone’s got a different situation, but this is what feels best for us financially and logistically. However, I have to admit it’s not what I thought it would be like.
Baby food is a whole industry. I think it should be called Baby fast food. Because, yeah, every once in awhile you need to just grab food that’s already prepared. I get it.
But surely you don’t eat fast food every day? (Fingers crossed over here.) Why should your baby?
Ok, ok, it’s not like a jar of Earth’s Best prunes is akin to a McNugget. The ingredient lists I’ve read on those jars are pretty darn clean, in fact!
Still. I’d rather not teach Danny that food comes in small jars with colored labels. I want him to see and taste some raw ingredients, see me in the kitchen, listen to the pots bang (and bang on some himself.)
It’s one of my core values, this home cooking thing. In case you hadn’t noticed.
Anyway, this whole idea of giving baby real food seems to confuse a lot of moms. I’ll outright admit that I am not an expert. Danny’s only been eating solids for 5 months. And there is no “right” way to introduce food to your baby.
But here’s a glimpse at some of what he’s been eating and why – and how to prepare it.
I promise it’s not hard. Please share this post with the moms you know – together we’ll change this culture of prepared, processed food!
Sweet tastes good. End of story. I’m reminded of this each day when Danny accepts his spinach or his beef but really lunges for his sweet potato. It’s a built-in craving.
Ok, so on that note I was in Target yesterday and decided we probably needed some cookies (oh geez, here we go Michelle). Since I wasn’t going to make it to Whole Foods, I figured I’d see what Target had. Like, a bag of good ol’ Fig Newtons must be fairly natural? Not too many weird ingredients, right?
Wrong! Fig Newtons are made with high fructose corn syrup, as are just about every other cookie on the shelf. Including the homemade-looking Archer brand I almost got fooled into buying. Only Kashi cookies were made with regular sugar.
(Which, of course, does not make them healthy by any stretch of the imagination. But I still bought them. I’m human.)
Anyway, the reason I’m talking about sugar and corn syrup is because we are all human, and we love our sweets. This is a recipe you will therefore love. All 3 of us did!
Cranberry Citrus Quinoa
For quinoa:
1 cup uncooked quinoa
1 cup orange juice
1 cup water
big pinch of salt
2 Tbl. olive oil
1/2 onion, minced
1 cup butternut squash, diced
1 pear, diced
5 oz. fresh cranberries, chopped (although I suppose you could use dried)
1 cup walnuts, chopped and toasted
1 handful fresh mint, chopped
1 handful fresh basil, chopped
1 lemon, juiced
Big pinch cayenne pepper
salt and pepper
First, rinse and drain quinoa. Then combine with OJ and water in a pot, bring to a boil and simmer until water is absorbed.
Meanwhile, heat oil in a big pan and add onion. Add a bit of salt and pepper. Cook until translucent. Add squash and pear. Mix and cover until they are soft (about 5 min). Mix in quinoa, then add herbs, lemon, and more salt and pepper.
*At this point, take out a portion for baby and set aside. At least, that’s what I did. Though in retrospect I think he’d have liked the cranberries if they were chopped smaller.*
For the adults, add cranberries, walnuts and cayenne. Mix well.
Serve over cooked or raw greens.
For the record, here are other things that Danny likes to try and eat:
Deodorant, christmas tree ornaments, my leg, the couch, his coat, my nose, the cat’s tail.
You’d think natural selection would have knocked out this dangerous need to eat everything by now! Or else natural selection is what gave mothers eyes in the back of our heads. Sometimes.
Sometimes your day (and by “your day” I mean “my day”) consists of a little boy repeatedly unrolling the toilet paper, pulling stuff out the recycling bin, and methodically removing books from the shelves.
Or maybe you spend too much time on Facebook, too little time doing your hair, too much money on the heating bill and not enough on pedicures.
Perhaps you look in your pantry and see nothing except a bag of lentils.
Then you turn around and the little boy has a piece of kitty litter in his mouth. Again. Meanwhile, the kitty ate some kale out of your shopping bag and proceeded to throw it up all over the white carpet. Also the repair guy never came by like he was supposed to.
Well, shit. You’re not feeling very fancy today, are you?
I really wasn’t sure. It was always my guess that children come into the world programmed to enjoy real food. That they don’t need sugary puffs and processed, animal shaped cookies.
Seems like it’s true.
Now, I know this won’t last forever. There will come a day when Danny says, “Hey mom, I want Cocoa Puffs!” because he saw them at a friend’s house. There will come a day when he smears cake all over his face at a birthday party. Or a day when he and I share cookies and milk and tell stories and laugh.
It’s all good.
But for now, his tastebuds don’t know what white flour and sugar taste like (except for a few bits of muffin he picked off the floor of a coffee shop last week) and that’s fine by me. It’s fine by his body too – after all, sugar and white flour do nothing except make us weak and tired.
So for now, my sweet boy gets only the good stuff. For as long as I can hold out without being too idealistic.
In the video he’s enjoying this:
A simple smoothie
2 handfuls green swiss chard
1/2 apple
enough water to create desired consistency (about 3/4 cup)
Meals like this are sometimes called “Garbage Plates” or “Garbage Salads.” It makes me cringe though – I just can’t call organic veggies and grass-fed steak “garbage.”
Maybe a Kitchen Sink Salad? Even that sounds like it should go down the disposal.
Nah, let’s just call this an un-recipe. A formula for making the most out of the food in your fridge and getting dinner on the table fast.
I help busy people find balance in their over-worked, over-stressed lives. Trust me, it's not an all-or-nothing situation! A few shifts in diet and lifestyle can rock your world like they did mine. (And if you're a health coach, I can help you do the same for your own clients.) Read on
