Real Food for Mother and Baby

I just finished reading, Real Food For Mother & Baby: The Fertility Diet, Eating for Two and Baby's First Food  by Nina Planck (Bloomsbury, 2009).

Jonathan Yardley of the Washington Post described Nina Planck as “A cross between Alice Waters and Martha Stewart.”

What’s in it for you?
If you’re looking for guidance as you enter the all important act of conception and the stages of pregnancy, breastfeeding, weaning, and introducing nourishing food to your baby, or you educate parents, prospective parents, and caregivers about the essentiality of a diet based on real, wholesome, and traditional foods, you’ll want to read this book.

You’ll get ideas about what to eat when you’re pregnant and why. You’ll glean tips from Ms. Planck’s experience and insight about the changes your body and emotions may go through and how to prevent problems such as swelling, bloating, excess weight gain and varicose veins. You’ll learn from the author's experience nursing a baby and eating real food, how to know when to wean, what to feed your baby, and what challenges you might encounter along the way. You’lll also learn about
How to transition your baby to solid foods.

If you are hoping to get pregnant, this book is worth buying for the chapter on fertility foods alone. You’ll find information that used to be common sense that has been lost in our modern fast food and pharmaceutical focused culture.

For the record
Before we go any farther I want to make it clear that I am not pregnant nor am I even remotely considering becoming so, at least not this time around. If I have another life coming up after this one, I’ll consider it…then! So why am I reading a book on this subject? I thoroughly enjoyed Nina’s previous book, Real Food: What to Eat and Why.  I like the way she cuts through the dietary dogma dictated by the industrialized fast food empire and stands up for real, old, whole, and slow foods.

Practical wisdom
In this, her latest work, Ms.Planck shares practical wisdom and her personal experience going through the stages of pregnancy, delivery, nursing, and introducing solid food to her baby. She debunks many conventionally held beliefs about pregnancy and baby foods.

     “Nina Planck’s personal story of life with baby Julian, from preconception to tending the first tomatoes at their own Small Farm, makes compelling reading. Her non-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is voice cuts through cant and euphemism like a whiff of sharp cheddar for anyone who wants the real dope. Her basic distinction between real and fake foods makes essential reading not just for mothers with babies, but for all of us who want to live and eat well.”
    ---Betty Fussell, author of The Story of Corn, Raising Steaks, and My Kitchen Wars

Tells it like it is
Nina can be controversial. Her op-ed in The New York Times on vegan diets for infants was one of the paper’s most emailed articles; however, if you delve deeply you’ll discover that what she says makes sense – intuitively, historically, nutritionally, and even scientifically. 

    “Science is finally catching up to what our grandmothers knew long ago:  that traditional foods, and even fats, are actually good for you—and a whole lot healthier than the creations of food technology. Drawing on the latest research and oldest folk wisdom, Real Food offers a persuasive and invigorating defense of eggs, butter, mea, and even lard (!(, as well as a powerful critique of a food industry that aims to replace these standbys with its highly processed, and sometimes deadly, simulacra. Nina Planck has written a valuable and eye-opening book.”
    --- Michael Pollan, a real food advocate and author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, The Botany of Desire, and In Defense of Food

What’s real food?
Ms. Planck defines real food as old––meaning we’ve been eating it for a long time, thousands, if not millions of years.

Planck includes stone age foods we can or could hunt or gather: meat, fish, fowl, insects, eggs, leaves, nuts, berries, and the odd sip of honey scavenged from bees – cultivated foods such as whole grains, and foods we can make from them, such as traditionally fermented sourdough bread, porridge, wine, and beer, which in the context of our time on earth are relatively recent additions that entered human diets approximately 10,000 thousand years ago. 

She also includes in this category traditional dairy products––real creamy butter, full fat milk, yogurt, kefir, buttermilk, sour cream, and whole milk cheese. By traditional she means foods produced and prepared roughly as they once were before factories gave us refined, denatured, lesser versions.

While her definition may not be spot on for those who espouse and follow a paleo or primal diet,  it’s fairly chose and I believe her definitions would certainly put the majority of Americans on the road to better health by eliminating the most unnatural foodstuffs and focusing on more nutrient dense foods created by nature.

Out with the old school
Rather than the old school notion that pregnant women should take iron supplements, eat low fat foods, avoid fish because of mercury contamination, eat soy for protein and reduce their salt intakes if they’re swelling, Nina explains why you’re better off getting your iron from red meat, eating wild fish for omega 3’s, eating more protein to reduce swelling, eating plenty of traditional fats for boost important fat soluble nutrients. 

Photo right: Rachel Albert Matesz © Copyright 2009

“ Eating is our most fundamental and sensual act. It never did make sense to me that eating what’s good for you should mean depriving yourself of foods you desire. Now Nina Planck explains exactly why we are drawn to foods that delight our senses and keep us healthy.”
    ---Bill Niman, founder of Niman Ranch

Breast is best
Nina won’t give you the worn out mainstream advice that nursing for 3 months is enough, that your baby needs mushy food, that cereals are soft veggies are good first foods, or that your baby needs iron fortified cereals or formula.  She will tell you about how breast milk saves lives and that formula can’t replace it and that even today’s “good” formulas contain bad ingredients.

Myth busting
Contrary to what your doctor might tell you, Ms. Planck will tell you about how the benefits of nursing for digestion, immunity, and nutrition continue for as long as you nurse, even while feeding real food.

You’ll learn about why Ms. Planck thinks teeth have nothing to do with baby nutrition; why you don’t have to spoon feed your baby, why the best first foods are good fats (avocado, olive oil, and butter) and proteins (meat, cheese, and egg yolks); why you don’t need to make or buy bland or puréed baby food or delay feeding your baby good/real foods, such as milk or eggs, to prevent allergies. Best of all Ms. Planck will encourage you to breast feed and buy and to feed your whole family real foods.

From zero to two
This book is a complete guide to eating from pre-conception to 2 years of age.  Even people who aren’t planning to get pregnant will profit from this practical guide to eat real food. You'll also find valuable resources from books and web sites to organizations that can provide support and education as you move through the stages of pregnancy and mothering.

To read articles by Nina, receive her newsletter, and more visit her web site: http://www.ninaplanck.com/

To pick up your copy of Real Food for Mother and Baby check on line sources such as Amazon or visit your local bookstores. You won’t regret it!

Comments

[Nursing Tank]

Thank you for the post, I am completely impressed, keep posting like this.

[beco butterfly]

Nina won’t give you the worn out mainstream advice that nursing for 3 months is enough, that your baby needs mushy food, that cereals are soft veggies are good first foods, or that your baby needs iron fortified cereals or formula.

Hi Beco,

You are right. Nina focuses on the most nutrient dense foods, which grains are not, and she believes in real, whole, traditional foods not canned, boxed, fortified, and highly processed foods. Have you read her books?

Chef Rachel