Nutrition & Diet

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Nutrition & Diet

Food Groups

þ These foods nourish your body well

Pulses, dals, lentils (rajma, channa, lobia), milk, curd.

eggs, meat and other non-vegetarian products, idli.

sambhar, paneer, soyabean, khichri with curd, oats.

lemons, fresh seasonal fruits and vegetables.

dry fruits, raw nuts, fruit or vegetable juice.

green chutney, tender coconut water.

ýThese foods damage your body when taken in excess

Salt, sugar, jams, preservatives, pickles, cold drinks.

Cheese, ready to eat packed foods ajino-moto (MSG).

Butter, Cream, Pastries, Chocolates, Ice creams

pakoras, jalebis, mathis.

What if I am anaemic

You can improve your hemoglobin by eating the right things. You need to eat coriander (dhania), mint (pudina), raddish leaves (moolie patta), raisins (kishmish), cauliflower leaves (phool gobi patta), soya bean, etc.

However, when you eat all this, do not have tea, coffee, cola or chocolates along with them, because they contain caffeine which will block iron absorption.

Nimbupani is good, because vitamin C in lemons aids iron absorption. You could squeeze lemon on to your salad too.

These are ways in which you can get the maximum goodness from your food:

	Clear vegetable soup is very nutritious. All the vitamins, minerals, proteins, etc. from the vegetables are passed into the soup. Thick soups are not good, as flour and fat are used to thicken them.
	Greens, like kerae, palak, methi, sarson, bathua, cholai, should be washed first and then chopped. If you cut them first and then wash them, you will lose most of the water-soluble vitamins while washing.
	Keep your vegetables away form heat and light. Heat and bright sunlight destroy some of the vitamins. Further destruction comes with cooking, so that by the time you eat it, a fair amount of vitamins are lost. Boil potatoes whole.
	With fruits and vegetables avoid peeling if possible, or peel lightly, e.g. carrots, apples, pears. Wash vegetables and fruits before peeling, not afterward.
	Do not overcook vegetables; keep them crunchy. Try and cook just before eating, in order to avoid reheating. Avoid storing cooked vegetables in the fridge for more than 24 hours. When you reheat food, first leave it outside the fridge for about ½ an hour so that the change of temperature is not too sudden. Avoid over cooking vegetables to death. Steaming in the pressure cooker protects vitamins.
	It is best to use stainless steel utensils for cooking, since it is a metal that does not react to the food, like many other metals do. If you do not have them, the next best thing is to transfer food into stainless steel or plain glass bowls as soon as it is cooked.

My mother wants me to eat ghee...

If you take ghee regularly, but do not do much work in the house and do not go for regular walks either, it could result in extra weight and stiff joints, making delivery difficult. However, if you are active and if you are not overweight, and if you do not have any cholesterol problem, you can go ahead and have ghee.

Over the years several women have said that eating butter or badam rogan or ghee in the last month of pregnancy helped them to have an easy delivery. This needs to be medically validated.

As such fats in the diet help in the absorption of fat soluble vitamins A, D, E and K.

Vitamin A helps to prevent infection. Vitamin D makes strong bones. Vitamin E makes skin healthy. Vitamin K helps in blood clotting.

All these factors could be of significance in relation to childbirth. For instance, keeping infection away would be useful, strong bones and good skin, and blood that clots could all be of enormous help.

1 gram of ghee has 9 calories. 1 tablespoon of ghee has 15 grams of ghee and therefore 135 calories. According to Dietary Guidelines for Indians published by the National Institution of Nutrition, Hyderabad, 1998, ‘Visible fat intake should be increased during pregnancy and lactation to 30 grams and 45 grams respectively.’

15 grams of fat therefore falls within permissible limits. However, for today’s aware, weight-conscious women, who do not want to put on too much weight, here are a couple of tips. When you add one tablespoon of ghee or butter to your diet in the 9^th month, you can avoid other intake of calories like puddings, chocolates, cold drinks, foods with thick gravies, fried foods etc. Or else you can increase your calorie expenditure by going for long walks, which will also be beneficial in preparing your body for an easy and natural childbirth.

Source: Pregnancy-The Complete Childbirth Book by Nutan Lakhanpal Pandit

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