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But will the baby like fruit?
So, here’s yet another study to drive pregnant women crazy. Researchers at the University of Colorado said a mother’s food choice during pregnancy “sensitizes” the fetus to the taste and smell of those foods and “even shapes their brain development.”
The experiments were done on mice by Professor Josephine Todrank, now of the University of Haifa. As reported in the Daily Mail, the professor claims that there’s “no reason” to think that the food preferences shown by mice based on their mother’s prenatal diet would produce different results in humans. She goes on to say: “It is not yet clear how long these changes and preferences last, but we are currently investigating that question.”
Um, yes. We don’t know how long the preferences last, and while a healthy prenatal diet is important, can we please lay off the brain changing claims? Pretty Please?
Pregnancy is many things: a blessing, a romance, an hourglass. It’s also a time when a woman is essentially alone with the responsibility of nurturing a life. So what do we as a culture decide to do? Drive her crazy! Don’t eat goat cheese. Don’t eat deli turkey. Eat fish. Wait! Don’t! Eat! That! Fish!
I wrote a pregnancy book with a doctor named Joel Evans. Joel’s advice about diet remains incredibly sensible and boils down to this: Eat a reasonable diet. If you make healthy choices like eating whole grains, lots of fruits and vegetables, healthy proteins and fats, it’ll be better for you and make it easier for you to lose weight postpartum. It’s also better for the baby, sure. But don’t be fooled. Fetuses get the nutrients they need no matter what. So if you the pregnant mom aren’t eating enough calcium the baby will just take it from your bones. For more specific information on the influence of prenatal diet, check out Annie Murphy Paul’s book Origins.
Even though we Americans supposedly never eat together, never cook, never sit down for a meal, never eat anything fresh or green or antioxidant or grown locally — despite all of that, we’re sort of obsessed with food.
Exhibits A through ZZZ are all the food shows on TV, the little blogs, the big blogs, radio shows, magazines, books and cooking classes for those as young as 3. Food images and information are everywhere, just everywhere. Food itself? Well, that depends on how you define it.
For the middle-class and above, getting good food isn’t such a big problem (though since the beginning of the recession, more and more middle class families are finding themselves food insecure). But for working class, low-income and poor families, what they eat is barely considered food by the growing cadre of cook-from-scratch enthusiasts (See also: aforementioned middle- and upper-income Americans). Continue reading »
Coffee Substitute?
Too tired to drive carpool or take your kids to Mommy and Me classes? Looking for a new pick-me-up? Why not try popcorn?
It’s not just any old popcorn. It’s BioFUEL, the caffeine-infused popcorn produced at home by parents Amanda and Matthew Fitch.
“A regular bag of BioFUEL has as much caffeine in it as a strong cup of coffee,” Amanda Fitch told AOL News. “It’s sweet, salty and loaded with energy.”
Although the popcorn doesn’t taste at all like coffee, it’s loaded with a “proprietary blend” of all-natural ingredients, including caffeine from coffee beans.
It’s sweet and salty and apparently, it’s addictive. Continue reading »
What's going to go in this bag?
Am I the only one who regularly digs through her crisper only to find a fuzzy green pepper that started out red snuggled into a pile of brown parsley? Every once and a while we manage to eat all the fresh food I buy in a week, and when we do, it’s like I’ve climbed the Mt. Everest of home economics. But, given the food news this week, it’s time to buckle down and get serious about meal planning.
Why? Because this year’s drought in Russia and the growing demand for beef in China and India, which translates into a growing demand for grain, mean the cost of food is going up. And yet, on the whole, Americans don’t use 25 to 50 percent of the food we buy. What’s going on in our refrigerators?
Cause of Childhood Obesity?
Want a toy with those fries? You’re out of luck if you’re dining in San Francisco.
On Tuesday, the city’s Board of Supervisors passed a law which prohibits free toys with unhealthy kids meals, according to Reuters.
The new law, which will take effect on December 1, is similar to an ordinance passed in April in nearby Santa Clara County, which mandates that restaurant kids’ meals can’t give away toys unless they meet certain nutritional guidelines. Continue reading »
Do we measure up?
Some kids will be tall, some short, that’s the way it goes. Does it matter? Sort of. As it turns out, the average height of is meaningful in all kinds of ways. American kids were the world’s tallest until the 1960s, today, children in the Netherlands lead the growth charts. In other words, when pregnant women have access to prenatal health care and children, too, have access to quality, affordable health care, healthy food and playtime outside, those kids grow to their fullest height.
School lunch
Celebrity chef Mark Bittman says that, when it comes to school lunches, America is the third world. American kids get lower quality nutrition than school children in Brazil, a much poorer nation.
I don’t think of Brazil as a third world country the way Bittman does, but it’s certainly a developing nation and nowhere near as wealthy as the US.
In Brazil, the school lunch menu doesn’t vary that much: children are fed rice and beans every day at school. They also get fresh vegetables and meat. Thirty percent of the vegetables and meats that go into Brazilian school lunches must be purchased from local farms.
By contrast, US students routinely eat pizza, mac&cheese and jello. Who’s getting the healthier lunch?
Lori Garcia 
Joslyn Gray 
Amber Doty 
Julianna Miner 
Monica Bielanko 
Sierra Black 
Meredith Carroll 
Carolyn Castiglia 
Sunny Chanel 
Madeline Holler 
Rebecca Odes 
Danielle Smith 
Danielle Sullivan 
Katherine Stone 
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