Mommy Knows Best (and so do you)

Pregnancy taught me a lot. Not just about my life and goals, my emotions, fears and joys, but yes, about food too. As I wrote about in Cry When You’re Hungry, when I was pregnant food didn’t taste particularly good to me. The nausea subsided after about 3-4 months, but until July 16 when my daughter was born, eating was a bit of a chore, and one that often made me feel at least slightly sick to my stomach.

Then a fabulous thing happened – I gave birth.

In addition to meeting and subsequently falling in love with my daughter, I also got reacquainted with my taste buds. Since this blog is about food and not about motherhood (though I guess it’s becoming more about both these days), I’ll stick with the food lessons here.

As soon as I was allowed to eat real food after the birth of Emily I did, and it tasted DELICIOUS WITH A CAPITAL D. The only way I can describe it is to say that my taste buds blossomed after being in hibernation for 10 months. When I say food tasted delicious (and it still does!), I mean every morsel that went into my mouth gave each taste bud a big, fat hug on the way down.

In the first days and weeks after delivering Emily, I had intense cravings for cranberry juice. I have no idea why, but I drank it by the bucket-full it seemed, and enjoyed every sip (and gulp). As soon as that craving mellowed out, I recognized – and have been honoring ever since – a very hearty appetite for meat.

Just last week my mother-in-law prepared the most delicious Julie & Julia inspired beef bourguignon with roasted potatoes I’ve ever had (actually, I think it’s the only time I’ve had the dish, but I’ll gladly eat it again). I enjoyed every mouthful. While I never used to order roast beef sandwiches, I’m now proud to say that I know the best one in the city. I also crave broiled chicken breasts, chicken salad sandwiches, zucchini, roasted carrots, asparagus, beef burgers, turkey burgers, mango, espresso and chocolate. I’m enjoying all real foods that I used to love but had no taste for throughout my entire pregnancy.

What’s intuitive about this? I just think it’s interesting that after 40 weeks with absolutely no taste for protein, it’s taken center stage on my plate for the last 10 weeks. Not because a doctor prescribed it, and not because I think I should be eating it, but because that’s what my body is craving. Intensely.

And then there’s oatmeal. Ever since I returned home from the hospital all I’ve wanted for breakfast is a big bowl of oatmeal with sliced bananas on top. I keep thinking I’ll crave eggs for breakfast again soon, or yogurt and fruit….a blueberry muffin, perhaps, but no. In 10 weeks, it hasn’t happened.

What’s so interesting to me about my taste for oatmeal is what I learned recently in my mommy and me class: oatmeal is said to increase milk production. I don’t know if this is true or simply an old wives tale, but as you can see from the picture above (those are bags of stored milk in our freezer), I’ve got enough milk to open my own store: Maggie’s Milk for Munchkins.

Who knows why I’m so into oatmeal these days, or if my meat craving is my body’s way of making up for the lack of it in my diet for so many months. But I say it’s no coincidence. I say my body knew exactly what it needed to produce a hefty milk supply, and sent me signals of what foods would help generate the most efficient “production line.”

Lesson learned? Our bodies possess an inner wisdom. They know what they need to eat to function properly. Pregnancy and now nursing has magnified this lesson for me in a beautiful (and delicious) way. Do you have any good examples of this in your life? If so, please do share.