so i'm told i need 100g of protein/day while pregnant...

[rawhippie]

has anyone else gotten this info from their nutrionist?
i saw a midwife who is also a nutrionist and is well versed in raw food (thankfully) and she told me that i should have one piece of fruit per day as she sees too many diabetic pregnancies due to too many carbs and to also make sure i am going to get 100 grams of protein per day. holy moly!
has anyone heard this? and if so, what am i supposed to eat? i do cheat with soy based products, but other than beans (which i'd need to eat about 10 pounds a day to get that much protein) what can i do? i know greens are good, but still, to meet 100 GRAMS? i would need to drink gallons and gallons...that's just not humanly possible. the prenatal vitamins that i'm taking right now have 20% of the daily allowance for protein and i've been having a couple of greens plus protein bars a day (they have 8 grams of protein each) but i've got to figure something else out or the next nine months will go very slowly with my minimal options that i have right now.
thanks for any help.
peace and love
rawhippie

[Asian Pear]

:eek:

She is so obviously UN-versed in raw food to be telling you, especially a pregnant woman to eat only 1 piece of fruit a day, and in particular to say that fruit causes diabetes.

Does she actually think all the children and adults who have diabetes got it from eating too much FRESH fruit? Of course not. It is the Standard American cooked and processed diet of refined sugars mixed with high amounts of heated fats coupled with lack of activity that has contributed to diabetes and other sugar related disorders, certainly not fruit.

Do not be afraid of fruit - it is full of precious important nutrients, fiber, GOOD carbs for energy not to mention it will fulfill your caloric needs very nicely. In fact, you should be eating plenty of fruit for a healthy pregnancy.

As for that amount of protein - I don't think so. You don't need that much protein, besides all raw food gives you the perfect amount of protein, you don't need to purposely eat protein - just eating fresh fruits and veggies. High protein has contributed to more diseases than anything else, check out the book The China Study.

See The Garden Diet, Jinjee has a journal about her 5 pregnancies, all born healthy and children thriving wonderfully on a raw food diet.

[rawhippie]

okay, let me clarify what she said about fruit a little bit.
when she heard i was a raw foodist, she said that at least with vegetarians the problem she sees is that they eat too many processed carbs and too much fruit. the only thing i can think is that she thinks i eat bagels and bread all day to supplement my appetite. yeah, maybe she's not as versed in raw food as she says.
i can't seem to get clear answers anywhere! is it all just opinions when you break it all down?

[Revvell]

"... well-versed in raw food?" Unlikely.

The spin she's got you in is worse than anything I can imagine (almost). Where is this woman getting her information?

It's NOT protein you need, it's the amino acids which create usable protein.

I'm so dumbfounded at this person's ignorance I can't even continue.

Just read your second post... she thinks you eat bagels and bread all day? Does she even know what "raw" means?

O.k., she's possibly dealing with "junk-food vegetarians".. those who eat everything from a package, jar, can, bottle and who possibly drink and smoke ~ at least the animals aren't being hurt. O.k., yeah, sarcasm except so many are more concerned about the health of others than they are of themselves.

Please, listen to Asian Pear. Jinjee comes from the experiences of birthing 5 children; 3 while raw. Not opinion ~ experience.

You might want to share the site with your mid-wife too. The poor woman needs some education.

Revvell

[coco]

Beans (including soy)
Tofu, ½ cup 20 grams protein
Tofu, 1 oz, 2.3 grams
Soy milk, 1 cup - 6 -10 grams
Most beans (black, pinto, lentils, etc) about 7-10 grams protein per half cup of cooked beans
Soy beans, ½ cup cooked – 14 grams protein
Split peas, ½ cup cooked – 8 grams
Nuts and Seeds
Peanut butter, 2 Tablespoons - 8 grams protein
Almonds, ¼ cup – 8 grams
Peanuts, ¼ cup – 9 grams
Cashews, ¼ cup – 5 grams
Pecans, ¼ cup – 2.5 grams
Sunflower seeds, ¼ cup – 6 grams
Pumpkin seeds, ¼ cup – 19 grams
Flax seeds – ¼ cup – 8 grams



1/4 cup of pumpkin seeds is 19 grams of protein. that's outrageous! wow.

you can always enter your daily diet into fitday.com and see what you're getting and what you're missing. might be good to bring a print out to the midwife too. show her where you're at so it isn't an issue.

[Raene]

Please do a search on youtube.com for "protein myth" and there's a great video of a raw foodist who only eats fruits and veggies. He gets NO protein but TONS of amino acids. Our bodies convert protein TO amino acids, so if we just get the amino acids, that's less work for our bodies. :)
THere are several people who've had raw pregnancies. I know of one woman in my town who just had a raw baby 4 months ago. Mom has been 100% raw for 10-15 YEARS. The baby is chubby and healthy.
Jinjee at www.thegardendiet.com too and there are several raw blogs. Good luck.

[rawhippie]

thankyou so much for that info coco!
and thankyou everyone else!
okay, so i ordered jinjees ebook on pregnancy, uhm how do i access it? anyone know?

[Raene]

Yeah, they will email it to you in a day or so at the most.
I have it and it's really helpful in my opinion. Just reassuring. She doesn't supplement, even with green powders, DHA, etc...and her kids are in great health. :) Hope you enjoy it!!

[rawhippie]

thankyou so much!!
do you have any other recommended books/readings along these lines?
thanks again

[Raene]

Primal Mothering is a fabulous book and she had a raw pregnancy and describes a very very easy birth.

Not related to raw foods, but HypnoBirthing: The Mongan Way is a great book for childbirth (I'm a HypnoBirthing practitioner so I may be a bit biased, lol).

http://www.pullingdaisies.blogspot.com is a fabulous raw blog by a woman who recently had a baby.

[coco]

laura kaplan shanley's website Bornfree is a terrific affirmation of all the things that can go Right with birth. a wonderful site.

[rawhippie]

you both have been so incredibly helpful, thankyou very much.
much peace and love
rawhippie

[RawSun]

Hi Rawhippie,

According to Gabriel Cousens, Conscious Eating (which has 30 pages on pregnancy), protein intake should be increased to approximately 60-75 grams per day, depending on your constitutional type (which he discuses in the book). He stresses grains, nuts and seeds raw or sprouted as the most potent health-building foods. Best seeds are flax, sunflower, chia, sesame and pumpkin. Almonds and Hazelnuts are the best nuts. Buckwheat and millet are the best grains.
Veggies are next in importance. In particular leafy greens. Next is yellow veggies (carrots, corn, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, squash.
Fruit are also important, raisins and apricots being great sources of iron. Citrus is a great source of Vitamin C, and melons are high in Vitamin A.
Superfoods are also recommended, such as spirulina and chlorella.
I'd highly recommend getting ahold of this book and reading the section on pregnancy, as it's packed with nutritional information.

[coco]

you are most welcome. i found very little info available via the raw foods community when i was pregnant the first time and it was so frustrating! i'm happy to tell you anything i know.
i followed some of gabriel's recommendations during pregnancy, the most important of which i believe to be about the essential fatty acids. i took tons of them throughout my pregnancy and through nursing as well. it made a Huge difference for me.
there is a tremendous amount of info in 'prescription for nutritional healing' as well. that's my go to book for nearly everything. i make a list of the nutritional recommendations and then research which foods are high in them and go from there.

[PeachyLove]

The book “The World’s Healthiest Foods” gives a break down of amino acids in green veggies, an example of amino acids in one cup of cooked kale, I would assume raw kale would have more amino acids than cooked and amino acid would be more bioavailability in blended green smoothies.

2.5g protein

Amino acids - Grams - Daily Value
Alanine .12
Arginine .14
Aspartate .22
Cystine .03 - 7.32
Glutamate .28
Glycine .12
Histidine .05 - 3.88
Isoleucine .15 - 13.04
Leucine .17 - 6.72
Lysine .15 - 6.38
Methionine .02 - 2.70
Phenylalanine .13 - 10.92
Proline .15
Serince .10
Threonine .11
Tryptophan .03 - 9.38
Tyrosine .09 - 9.28
Valine .14 - 9.52

Females 14+ years need 46 grams of protein
Pregnant & lactating women need 71 grams

“excessive intake of protein is ill-advised. Excessive intake of protein over many years may lead to kidney problems and/or accelerated bone loss eventually leading to osteoporosis."

If you need food nutrition books I would recommend the books below, not all of them are raw books. I take information I can use and leave the rest.

Healing with whole foods
Rawsome
The World’s Healthiest Foods
prescription for nutritional healing

[PeachyLove]

You may want to check out Fertility, Cycles & Nutrition its not a raw book, but you may find information that can be helpful and you can adapt to your raw diet.

[Raw Angel Mom]

My good lord, i live on fruits and you bet that i had tone of fruits while i was pregnant. I NEVER HAD CRAVING so this must mean something! I would change mid wife and If only she isn't in tune with you.

There are people that don't do well with fruits but if you eat already many fruit, this would be insane to restrict. Fruits eating on an empty stomact, are absorb immediately by your body and therefore feed your baby inside your belly.

Go with what feels right with you. I was vegetarian while pregnant and did eat cook food but only organic and good quality food, never i would allow myself to have any junk food. Today, now that i know better, i would stick with my raw diet, if i would have craving for certain food, i would of eaten it but i didn't. I had organic egg occasionnally and yogurt but very rare. My fruits in the morning really did the trick for me. I also took supplement such folic acid, vitamin d and minerals angstrom size recommended by David Wolf. I only took those minerals at the mid of my cycle for my iron was to the max but in past i was anemic and my doctor told that it hard to heal from that and that i needed to supplement. The iron she gave me didn't do well, so this is then that i took the angstrom size mineral iron and i was fine. Today with my 100% raw diet, you bet that i have no longer problem with the low iron, lol...

Anyway, follow your voice of reason and not your voice of fear. Get some blood test done once in a while to make sure that you aren't deficient. Watch out for B12 deficiency.

I ate about the same before i got pregnant, i didn't notice that i was eating more protein. Fruits do have everything for our body to make proteins. My favority source of protein now is greens.

Best wishes!

[phytomama]

kind of funny what people 'think' they know. don't get too wrapped up in calculating everything. go with what feels right, but keep the protein thing in the back of your head.

i was 100% raw vegan up until my second trimester. i wish that i could've kept it up, but the morning sickness was killing me and thus pretzels and spelt sticks calmed my tummy.

i started out adding sprouted grain tortillas, hemp tortillas, ezekial bread, the obvious things like almond butter and cashew butter, a hemp shake and i craved tempeh. you can add the protein to your rawness and still have a wonderful pregnancy. i only gained 35lbs and had an 8lb healthy baby at home.

i do want to mention that you should probably take a look at what is in the green plus bars. they have a 'ton' of herbs in there. a better choice would be the organic food bar if you need a bar to keep you fueled. LARABARs are another quick bar option.

oh, if you'd like 'primal mothering' send me a pm. i'll gladly send it to you. i have been looking for someone to pass it on to.

happy birthing mama and lots of baby love your way. :D

[phytomama]

oh, i forgot to mention the fruit thing...i am hypoglycemic, when my body feels like it, but most of the time i do really really well on a raw diet with lots of fruit. when i was pregnant, i ate more fruit than i do right now. between the bananas in the smoothies, blueberries, dates, raisens, dried apricots and figs, strawberries every night for a snack and the 4 apples a day to help with the heart burn, i was a fruit eating machine.

guess what, no gestational diabetes. also, i was never constipated. too personal i know, but it is the most wonderful side effect of eating lots of fruit especially while other preggy mamas are have issues in the bathroom.:o

GO FOR IT!