What foods should I avoid during pregnancy and lactation?

During pregnancy and breastfeeding, it is essential to maintain a nutritious and balanced diet to support the health and development of both the mother and the baby. While it is important to have detailed guidance on recommended foods, it’s equally important to understand which foods to avoid.

Processed and Nutritionally Depleted Foods

Although it might seem tempting or convenient to indulge in processed foods or fast food occasionally, it’s crucial to understand that these choices can deprive your baby of essential nutrients. The rapid growth of your baby demands a steady supply of vital nutrients. And you do not have any extra low nutrient calories you can spare. For example, you cannot eat canola and seed oils not primarily because of the negative effects on your body but because they are high in calorie/nutrient ratio and eating foods cooked in this means you are going to miss out on some other calories that would be high in folate, B6, and thiamine, for example. Replacing nutritious meals with processed or nutritionally deplete foods can lead to deficiencies. Instead, consider quick, healthy alternatives:

Roast Whole Chicken:

Purchase a whole roasted chicken from the grocery store, which can provide a wholesome meal with minimal preparation. Pair it with fresh fruits and seeds for added nutrition. A breastfeeding mom can easily tear through half a roast chicken outside the grocery store while her 8 month old nursing baby climbs the stones in the grassy park. Add a fresh squeezed juice like grapefruit or carrot juice to complete your nutrition.

Nutrient-Rich Salads:

Many delis and grocery stores offer salad bars. In general you should stop in a grocery store for a to go meal, not go through Starbucks, Wendy’s, or Subway. Prepare salads loaded with pre-cooked fish, chicken, boiled eggs, avocado, and at least four vegetables. These salads take just a few minutes to assemble and offer a nutrient-packed meal.

Quick Oatmeal Bowls:

Opt for oatmeal bowls topped with frozen berries, hemp seeds, and coconut oil or ghee. Add a quick smoothie of a handful of cashews, water, and 2 bananas. This nutritious meal takes just 10 minutes to prepare, equivalent to the time spent at a fast-food restaurant.

Specific Foods to Avoid During Pregnancy

Coffee

While moderate coffee consumption is generally considered safe during pregnancy, it is recommended to limit caffeine intake to one cup per day (200 mg or less). Reducing caffeine intake over time can help as your tolerance diminishes. High caffeine consumption may have adverse effects.

Alcohol

Avoiding alcohol during pregnancy is imperative to prevent fetal alcohol syndrome (FASD) and potential long-term health issues. For example, recent research shows that consuming alcohol during pregnancy increases the likelihood of your child having whole body diseases such as cardiovascular disease or other metabolic diseases in adulthood . Alcohol causes damage by increasing oxidative stress on both the mother and fetus; this is exacerbated by a selenium-deficient diet . If you do choose to consume some alcohol during breastfeeding, make sure that you wait 1-2 hrs per a glass before breastfeeding. It is best to limit it to a small amount of organic or sulfate-free wine or craft beer made with real ingredients. You should avoid chemically made alcohol or beer, which include most national and international brands.

Other Food-like “Foods”

Avoid foods that are highly processed, artificial, or nutritionally lacking. These include:

1. Processed Meats
2. American Cheese: Note that it’s not real cheese.
3. Yogurts with added sugar
4. Sugar in general, it provides no vital vitamins or minerals. Bleached sugar is also produced with bone char. When using sugar, opt for natural unbleached brands to reduce contaminants. Sugar contains no vitamins or minerals, but sugar cane juice is high in iron. This iron is removed during the refining process. If you are iron deficient, sugar cane juice is an excellent breastfeeding and pregnancy tonic. A big issue with sugar is it causes metabolic imbalances when consumed in too high amounts, including insulin resistance and blood glucose imbalances that then affect other hormonal systems. These negative effects can cause epigenetic changes in your child so your child’s physiology reacts more strongly
5. Anything with the word “Natural Flavor” or “artificial Flavor”: Note that it’s not real cheese.
6. Refined Carbohydrates: This includes items like white bread, pasta, pretzels, packaged cookies, and crackers made with enriched flour. Instead, choose nutrient-rich options like sweet potatoes, fruits, or vegetables. The reason to remove these foods is not just because they can cause insulin dysregulation. If you remove bread and pasta you are going to be forced to eat a large sweet potato or half a head of broccoli for your carbohydrate source, thus greatly increasing your micronutrient intake. The only permissible place for refined white flour is in the case of famine or winter food deficients. The bran is removed to prolong preservation of flour, which prevents starvation, but the bran is the part that contains the nutrition.
7. Fake Food Designed to Pass as Real Food: For example, lab grown food. Most “health” bars are full of sugar, chemicals, and ingredients like whey protein that are mutagenic. If you crave these sorts of foods it is most likely your body is looking for thiamine, niacin, and biotin. Instead opt for real granola (homemade is the cheapest), puffed amaranth or puffed quinoa topped with cashew or hemp milk, honey, seeds, and dried or fresh fruit.
8. Soy Protein Isolate: found in granola bars and many vegetarian meat substitutes. It is not easily digestible, it interferes with mineral absorption, and it is manufactured using aluminum which makes it high in this metal that most people consume in about an ounce per year. Aluminum is a neurotoxin for the baby.
9. A general rule of thumb is to not consume an ingredient if you cannot imagine it growing in the ground or in it’s living state. Think twice if it comes in a box.
10. Avoid foods in the center isles of the grocery store. If you do not have to wash or wash, then cook the food, you might want to think twice. The exceptions to this are olive, coconut, and avocado oil, olives, nut butters, sardines, and perhaps some tomato sauce that comes in a glass jar.
11. Artificial sugar such as Splenda, nutrasweet, aspartame, and so on. These can have detrimental effects on your blood sugar and the future blood sugar regulation of your child.
12. Stay away from very cheap food. Good food for your health is expensive to produce which is why so many toxic plastic filled foods exist. Choose to skimp on clothes, expensive shoes, decorations, and so on. It is better to spend $100 on raw nuts, organic olive oil, eggs, some fresh dolmas, and a good quality sheep cheese than have a night out. Take a walk in nature and revel in the mystery of lighting bugs and the witching hour. Splurge on real food you eat at home.
13. Modern food chemistry has introduced various tricks to increase yield or mask inferior ingredients. Be cautious of:

• Rice with Added Plastic Pellets: Toast rice; if it doesn’t burn entirely, it may contain plastic pellets. Consider organic rice.
• Milk with Added Rice: Test milk by adding seaweed; if it turns anything other than white, it may contain rice.
• Fake Meat with Added Fillers: Some meats contain added fillers or extenders; opt for trusted sources.
• Baby Food Contaminated with Heavy Metals: Test baby food for heavy metals by using a rare earth magnet; contaminants will clump together. The best way to do this is to put the dry or wet baby food in a plastic bag, flatten it, and Run a rare earth magnet over the baby food to cover all the surface area without lifting the magnet up. Start at the left bottom corner and end with the right bottom corner. If there is lead or other heavy metals you will see them by the end in a clump.
• Fake Cheese: Authentic cheese will melt when exposed to a flame, whereas fake cheese may just char.
• Any ingredient on a package that you cannot imagine growing in the ground with roots and leaves, or walking around with legs…or swimming. If you read an ingredient and do not know it’s form in nature or a farm, you should not be eating it.

In conclusion you must learn to prioritize a nutrient-rich diet during pregnancy and breastfeeding to support the well-being of both you and your baby. Avoiding processed, nutritionally depleted, and potentially harmful foods is crucial for a healthy pregnancy and optimal fetal development. Occasional indulgences are not acceptable and it is important to make informed food choices for a thriving pregnancy and breastfeeding experience. Invest in real, unprocessed, and organic foods whenever possible to ensure the best possible start for your baby’s health and future.
If you want to argue that foods like cashews or berries or organic foods are too expensive, so you must turn to canned or packaged food, remember that for the same price there are cuts of meat, rice, vegetables, and beans from the produce section that actually give more calories per cent than processed foods. Vegetables are generally the cheapest foods along with rice and beans. Get creative, buy staples in bulk, and have the willpower to realize that if your cravings a bag of M and M’s and you do not have the money to buy healthy chocolate covered almonds free of waxes, emulsifiers, and chemicals then you need to cut some other activities from your life and make a cheap roast with potatoes carrots and collard greens served with a side of beans. Those cravings are from hunger for nutritious foods like this very cheap suggested meal.
The goal is to consume real food first and give up all processed foods. After that you can add in, if affordable, the fresh juices, berries, hemp seeds, and so on. Sunflower seed topped pumpkin soup is just as nutritious and a whole pot can be made for a few dollars.