Author Archives: Melissa | Growing Green Nutrition

Eating for two — A vegetarian pregnancy

Food is one of my favorite topics, and it’s been a bit neglected around here lately, but not for lack of eating, just lack of documentation 😉

Despite the first trimester nausea, I managed to eat fairly healthfully in the beginning of the pregnancy.  Not having to scramble to make dietary changes when I found out I was pregnant was one nice aspect of having a well-established healthy diet, though I was a little worried for the few weeks where pasta and rice noodles made up the bulk of my diet.

I haven’t had any specific food cravings, just a general craving for salt (and diminished interest in sweets).  I’m usually a bit of a salt-o-phobe, but the body needs more salt (to make more blood) during pregnancy, so I didn’t spend too much time worrying over my increasing affinity for salty foods and the salt shaker.  (I am curious about how long it will take to reset my taste buds and adjust to less salt post-pregnancy, though.  Will things that taste good now all-of-the-sudden taste way too salty, or will I have to scale back slowly to readjust???)

During the second trimester, I was pretty much ravenous all the time — packing enough food in the morning for a 9 1/2 hour work day presented a bit of a challenge.  Snacks included extra of a previous day’s leftovers, peanut butter and toast, or cheese and crackers.  Sometimes I just snacked on well-cooked beans with a bit of salt and olive oil.  In general, I picked fairly healthy snacks and tried to balance them with my other eating throughout the day (e.g., if my lunch was fairly cheesy, I would probably not have cheese and crackers as a snack that day).

In addition to needing more salt, the pregnant body also uses more protein.  Depending on weight, activity level, sex, etc., most adults need somewhere in the range of 40-50 grams of protein a day (many people, especially non-vegetarians, regularly eat WAY more than this, which is not necessarily a good thing).  When pregnant, that recommendation increases to 70-80 grams a day (some places recommend up to 100 grams a day, which is excessive).

I was fairly confident my protein consumption was adequate, but my midwives requested I keep track of what I ate on an average day and calculate the protein.  Being somewhat of a nutrition nerd, I complied happily.  Based on the one-day food record, I came in a bit above 70g of protein — right on target, no meat required 🙂

While I have continued to consume a more-or-less regular diet, I have kept an eye on the protein, making sure we’re eating legumes regularly, and perhaps eating a bit more eggs and dairy than usual (less green, I know, but we do our best).

Now that I’m into the third trimester, I notice the decrease in my stomach capacity.  Small, frequent meals/snacks is the name of the game now, which tends to be my preferred style of eating anyway.

By the end of April, I longed for the fresh produce that we’re getting from the garden and farmers’ markets now: lettuce, arugula, Swiss chard, broccoli, asparagus, strawberries — nom, nom, nom!  I’m looking forward to more of spring’s bounty in the coming weeks, as I nourish myself and the ever-growing little one (who is putting on about 1/2 pound a week now!).

Finally Bike Somewhere Day

Well, this week (May 16-20) was Bike-to-Work Week and today was Bike-to-Work Day.  Since I am usually off on Fridays, I celebrated this day last year by biking to work with Matthew, with a stop at one of Trailnet’s refueling stations.

No such luck this year, which found me headed to work (in the car) at the crack of dawn.  In fact, I spent an inordinate amount of time driving to and for work this week, a grand total of 368 miles.  Ugh.  (My normal baseline, of commuting to/from work four days a week with no extra driving is 128 miles.)

Exhausted from the marathon of a week, I seriously considered taking the bus to meet Matthew and his dad for lunch today.  The midday sun and heat, and threat of rain, weren’t making biking any more appealing, but I pulled BUB out anyway, and we had a lovely little ride.  BUB snuggled with Matt’s bike while we ate lunch at Gokul, a vegetarian Indian restaurant (their new location in The Loop).  It was not as good as the Indian restaurant in Rome*, but not bad, and I managed to avoid overdoing it and making myself uncomfortable (it’s a buffet).

On the way home, I swung by City Greens (which would have been much less convenient sans bike) and picked up some eggs for the week, as well as some ‘shrooms.  They had lots of various lettuces for sale, too, but we have tons of that in our garden now.  The eggs made it home safe and sound, at which point I enjoyed a much needed nap!  One challenging week down, one challenging weekend to go (but not this one, thankfully).

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*Hmm, I was going to link to my post where I mentioned the restaurant in Rome, but apparently that post doesn’t exist.  Trip coverage here has been woefully inadequate 😦

A basket for baby

In this age of rampant consumerism, what’s the best way to prepare for a major life event, like having a baby?  BUY things, of course!

Excessive consumption of resources and accumulation of “things” wreaks havoc on the planet and on personal finances.  I know this, and so I strive to lead a life of simplicity and minimalism, but the message can be overwhelming at times.

Lately, I’m fighting feelings that the lack of baby stuff around our apartment makes me a bad mama-to-be.  Illogical?  Yes!  But the feelings are there nonetheless.

Marketers work hard to convince us that buying and accumulating lots of baby stuff can prepare new parents for the major life transition they are about to experience, but that’s just not the case.

The truth of the matter?  Newborn babies have relatively simple needs: eat, sleep, poop and pee.  We can meet most of these with minimal material investment.

Eat: For the first 6 months or so, I should have this one covered.  At some point, we will most likely introduce a bottle, and there may be a breast pump involved, depending on work arrangements.

Sleep: The plan is for baby to sleep next to me in bed, which is “where babies belong” according to my anthropology professor, and where they sleep in many cultures around the world.  To learn more about cosleeping, including how to practice it safely, click here.

Poop and pee:  Cloth or disposable?  Turns out, those aren’t necessarily the only options.  I’ve been reading about Elimination Communication (AKA Natural Infant Hygiene) in books like The Diaper Free Baby and Diaper Free: The Gentle Wisdom of Natural Infant Hygiene.  Though I will have cloth diapers to use at times, I am very interested in this approach that cuts down on the number of diapers needed.


For now, our small collection of baby “things” fits nicely in this Moses basket that we found used at Kangaroo Kids.  We’ll use the basket as a daytime sleeping place that we can keep near us when we’re not using a sling.  Arranging the basket was fun and assuaged some of my “bad mama” guilt.  When the time comes, we’ll have the basics covered, and we’ll provide a loving, nurturing family and home — something that all the money in the world can’t buy!

We ain’t goin’ nowhere

On Saturday, April 30th, we finished our Cycling Savvy training and biked an additional bit to see one last apartment.  After 4+ months of looking, and little luck, it was decision day: give notice that we would vacate by the end of May or sign a year-long renewal.

We took it right down to the wire, but in the end, we renewed the lease on our one bedroom apartment for another year.

What does this mean?  Well, we haven’t quit looking, but as my due date draws ever closer, it’s becoming more and more likely that our little apartment will be accommodating an additional person (albeit a tiny one) come July.

On the upside, smaller spaces are more efficient than larger ones, we’ll be saving money, and we have a VERY GOOD reason for keeping baby stuff to an absolute minimum.  We will carefully screen any new item that comes into the apartment.

Right now, my goal is to continue looking for unnecessary stuff that we can eliminate from the space, while finding better ways to organize what remains.  In a recent post on clutter, the Eco Cat Lady shared this minimalist standard for decluttering, “if your house burnt to the ground, would you replace this item?”  As much as this makes sense, for most people, it is actually very hard to follow through on the conclusions to this question.  You almost need to actually HAVE a fire and be FORCED to start from scratch.

Funny thing is, this kind-of happened to me in high school, when my bedroom caught fire.  And while I would not wish for something this dramatic (and potentially dangerous), there is a certain appeal to having a perfectly clean slate.

In my mind, moving to a new place was going to somehow provide that clean slate, a rather unrealistic assumption, given that we would just be moving all of our current “stuff” into a new, slightly larger, space.

We are making some progress — a pile of stuff to take to scrap metal, other stuff for donating — but it feels SO slow.  About that clean slate . . . .