The illegal food of pregnancy

YES! I craaaaaved ahi sushi as well. And it's a double no-no, what with the raw and the tuna.

I sent my husband out to get it after delivery, and by the time he brought it back I was so not interested.

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i craved sushi as well. i dreaded the times we passed my favorite Japanese restaurant coz I kept thinking about their sushi.

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I posted this comment to Liz's post also: now that I'm pregnant I also crave a glass of wine. Just one little glass of Riesling would make me so happy, but I've resisted so far. I'm sure once this baby is born I won't be nearly as interested, but for now it is all I can think about some evenings.

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I craved slurpies... And caved too... One a day usually. I was very nauseated and for some reason slurpies were the only thing that made it better.

On the opposite side of the spectrum... Just the sight or even thought of a food I had previously loved, shrimp, would make me gag. At the time there was this one Red Lobster commercial that would send me running for the toilet every time it came on. I still can't eat shrimp over a year later. It's sad really...

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BEER. My entire first pregnancy all I wanted was beer, and lots of it. I knew I couldn't have even a sip, cause I'd want more!

The first beer after I gave birth is still the BEST beer I ever had.

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I am wishing I had spent June eating sushi and drinking wine every day. It's all I missed during my first pregnancy too. No other forbidden cravings. Mostly I just want peanut butter and jelly, mac and cheese, and pad thai.

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I too craved wine during both of my pregnancies. Sure it was forbidden fruit. But I WANTED just one little glass.

I finally gave in during the last trimester of my 2nd pregnancy when a nurse confessed that she knew all of the female docs in the practice drank a little during their pregnancies. The docs HAD to tell us that it was not recommened. Doesn't mean that they never had a glass.

All it took for me was one glass. Mmmm. And it was goooood.

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Though I denied it at the time: popsicles and pancakes. Not together, but I definitely wanted both. Often. And now I could care less about popsicles. I mean, really, who could give up pancakes??

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I also craved sushi!

I did to have sushi- without the fish! I ate a lot of kappa maki (cucumber rolls), avocado rolls, and shiitake mushroom rolls.

Just tasting the rice, wasabi, and soy sauce was enough to satisfy my craving- and the very first place I took my newborn daughter when she was old enough to go out? The sushi restaurant!

I do not recall if I ate raw fish while nursing, does anyone recall if it is still recommended to avoid raw fish while nursing?

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I have hyperemesis in my pregnancies (I am pregnant with my second and last child right now) so there are a lot of things I can't eat when I am pregnant because they just won't stay down. With my first son I craved raw fruits and vegetables so desperately that I cried the first time I ate a salad after he was born. With this pregnancy I told my DH that the minute son #2 crowns I want him to be on the phone with the local pizza place ordering a large pepperoni pizza and the biggest Diet Coke they have.

I tend to gain a lot of weight after I have my kids because my body finally isn't starving and so it holds onto every calorie it can get, and food tastes so good to me after 9 months of eating the same bland foods over and over again that I want to sample everything. A lot of hyperemesis moms make a list of foods that they want to eat after the baby is born and we systematically work our way down that list once the baby arrives. Of course the trick is to make that list last for a while and to not eat everything on it the first few weeks the baby arrives. HA! I learned that lesson the hard way with my first pregnancy- I gained more weight after pregnancy than I did in pregnancy!

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Not all sushi is raw! I could deal with passing the tuna roll because there are other delicious options (California--yum!). I wanted sashimi, the raw fish itself, doused in soy sauce. All I could think about was sashimi. Also, even though I never smoke (and still don't), I really wanted a cigar. Maybe because it was forbidden, I thought about smoking a cigar the way movies show fathers doing it in the waiting room. But after I gave birth, I had the sashimi and I passed on the cigar. It didn't seem so appealing, after all.

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Another sushi-craver here. I also craved wine, stinky cheese and Hoegaarden.

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Oh and saunas!

I think it was primarily that I craved the forbidden. So many 'rules' to suddenly deal with once you;re pregnant. I am fairly paranoid so I followed all of the suggestions, save the two times I indulged in a tuna melt. :)

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We live in Texas, and good Mexican food is a MUST. We went probably twice a week during my pregnancy. I've never *really* been a big beer fan, though I enjoyed a few. One time when we went to get Mexican food, DH ordered a Corona. It came, and he started squeezing the lime into it.... I could smell it across the table, and it was like nectar from the gods or something. I wanted it SOOO badly, that I took a tiny sip of his. Two and a half years later, the smell still makes my mouth water.

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I craved goat cheese, bleu cheese, any of those stinky, creamy forbidden soft cheeses--preferably with a good glass of red wine. Maybe it wasn't a craving as much as resentment at having to avoid some of my favorite things. What you can't have you want that much more!

Technically I guess it's okay to eat pasteurized soft cheeses, but since it was my first pregnancy (after two miscarriages) I was sorta paranoid. If we were to have a second child, I probably wouldn't be so paranoid again.

Laura--hyperemesis sounds awful! Hope you have a better experience this time around.

- L

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I craved sushi too, but that's not unusual for me. I always eat vegetarian anyway and make it at home a lot. It's the wasabi I love the most! I also wanted anything spicy. The more painful the better! Pad ped usually did the trick. And I did let myself have an occasional glass of wine or beer if we were out to dinner or something, probably one drink a month. At first I felt guilty and I confessed to the doctor that I had done so, but he just laughed.

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Wow! A lot of wine and sushi lovers! I tend to be of a belief that my cravings have something to do with what my body needs. For instance, every month when my "aunt flow" is visiting, I crave red meat. A nice, big, juicy steak. And being slightly anemic, I've associated my meat craving with my lack of iron around that time of the month. So, I try to indulge my craving and I usually feel much better for it. I don't know if anyone else has ever thought about it in this way but it seems to be quite accurate regarding my own body. Must say though, that I'm sure the beer-cravers were maybe lacking malt? :D

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Lots of iron in red wine, lots of protein in raw fish. My Dr told me, pregnant women in Japan eat sushi and pregnant women in France drink wine. I think it's more a question of common sense. I don't drink 'cause I'm a recovering alcoholic, but I use Arial non-alcoholic red wine in my stews. There are lots of fairly good alcohol free versions out there, but maybe cause I'm close to Napa Valley, we have more options. But I don't see a problem with 1/2 a glass of quality red wine, with a meal to dilute the alcohol reaction, for a healthy, normal pregnancy. Remember it wasn't long ago that our moms were giving the babies whiskey to help sleep and probably a cocktail or two for themselves! (ahh the 50's/60's!) I do eat sushi, but only on the day of the fish delivery, (the cooks tell me) and only fish with low bacteria/ mercury levels (smaller fish carry less of these as their life span is much shorter). I tend to go with the eggs, tobiko, ikura, and skip the tunas. and yes California rolls are fine, they are cooked. A nice treat is mix the eggs with rice, add soy sauce and sesame oil to taste and a little seaweed salad, so yummy and fortifying! Sheez, I'm now regretting that I have stew on the stove!

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