Eat Granite?!

As we talked about in “Building Blocks Part 1 – Body Talks”, when you’re pregnant, you are a partner in building a human being from scratch. You’re contributing the materials or building blocks your body is using to do this miraculous task. Building on the same premise of Lego's, let’s change a few things and get more specific.

You’re building or renovating a new house. You go to Home Depot to make some crucial decorative and structural decisions. Where do you start? Your first question might be -- what’s my budget? Small budget, and you’ll want to pinch pennies, cut corners, and skimp on bells and whistles. But if you have a large budget, you’re going to choose what you really love, which might be the nice granite counters, the real wood floors, the stainless steel appliances. We’re billionaires here. In our case, we don’t even have to consider skimping on materials. Pretty fun exercise, huh?

When we’re building a baby, we want to act as if we have an infinite budget. We don’t want to cut corners, because we’re building not only a complex human being who hopefully will contribute to this earth in a meaningful way, but also our own precious child. No pyramids, no skyscrapers, no gadget, or technology can compare to the complexity and value of what’s you’re building. You can ask any engineer, scientist, doctor, physicist, nothing is more complex than the human body. Therefore, we want to use the finest products, not some termite-bitten old 2x4s we found in the neighbor’s trash pile, to build our home, our baby. We don’t need wholesale, thrift shop, or hand-me-downs. We want quality. Remember, we have an infinite budget.

It doesn’t take a brilliant architect or physician to recognize that hamburgers and french fries are not the granite counter-tops of nutrition. When your body asks for these cheap synthetic blends, it’s really simply ready to build a counter-top and needs materials. French fries may be the most familiar materials, because that’s what you’ve been in the habit of choosing (every day on the drive home from work). But now, with this baby forming within you, it’s time to upgrade and introduce your body to granite nutrition.

Analyze a french fry and break it down to it’s most natural, quality level, and what is it? A potato. In some fast food chains, the french fries may just be plastic that taste like a potato, no one really knows, but when your body begs for those little golden devils, let’s suggest that it’s really begging for the nutrients in a potato. So a potato is our granite counter.

What are the other components of a french fry? Well, look at the second word – “fry”. French fries are indeed fried. Usually in a fake, processed “partially hydrogenated” oil that destroys your cells and clogs your arteries - a cheap option that food makers try to sell us because it saves them money. Who can blame them, it’s good business sense to save money and increase your profit margin; but not at the expense of our lives and health and especially not your baby. Your body’s plea for french fries may also not just be a need for potatoes, it could be a cry for oil of some kind. We have many different kinds of oils available to us, including the one you may be used to or addicted to, but olive oil is known as a very healthy oil and could be considered the granite of oils. Coconut oil, sesame oil, and avocado oil are also beautiful choices. You may have to go to a health food store or simply take note of the olive oil above the shelf of typical vegetable oils, but if you are going to upgrade one thing about your diet, I recommend the oils you’re using. Stay away from vegetable oil, corn oil, soybean oil, and even peanut oil. And switch from frying in a cup of oil to sautéing in a tablespoon or two of oil. A little goes a long way.

So now we’ve got potatoes, we’ve got olive oil, our granite counter-tops are coming along nicely. What else is going on in a french fry? Salt. What is salt? Well, your average table salt consists of fine granules of sodium chloride, usually processed to remove all the nutrients and minerals. But most of us have heard of sea salt. There are many varieties at your health food store – Celtic, Himalayan, Mediterranean. Look for a salt that is still moist like beach sand, with chunky granules, and a slightly grey or pink color. These salts have not been stripped of minerals and are therefore actually offering your body what it needs and really wants. During pregnancy, your body especially needs a lot of healthy salt, because it helps in high-risk pregnancies and salt deficiencies can actually add to the dangers of pre-eclampsia later on in pregnancy. The point is not to scare you but to say that good salt is healthy when you choose the kinds that bring necessary minerals to you and your little one.

So now you know what your body really needs when it begs for french fries - potato, olive oil, and Celtic sea salt. Practice this exercise by evaluating other foods that you crave but know are “no-nos”, and you’ll unearth the materials of the fine granite counter-tops you want to build for the beautiful human “house” shooting up within you.