Eating Healthy During Pregnancy

 Most healthcare providers only recommend that pregnant women add 300 extra calories to their diet. This is easy to do. Simply eat a healthy cup of yogurt (which gives you a serving of dairy), or eat a turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread and an apple.

In the first trimester, you may find it hard to eat anything, especially if you're experiencing morning sickness and an aversion of certain food smells. To help combat your nausea, you should eat small meals and snack frequently throughout the day. Having an empty stomach only aggravates morning sickness and makes it worse. In addition, you may want to stick to bland foods, or eat your meals with ginger tea. Ginger is believed to calm nauseous tummies, and it helps alleviate morning sickness for many women.

Once you start to feel better, remember to eat a healthy and balanced diet. It's important that you add more servings of fresh fruit and vegetables to your regular diet. In the first trimester, make sure that you eat enough leafy green vegetables (such as spinach, kale, and collard greens) and other foods that are fortified with folate – an essential nutrient that prevents neutral tube defects.

• Snack on raw vegetables dipped in your favorite salad dressing.


• Concoct a delicious fruit smoothie by combining fresh fruit (such as bananas, strawberries, blueberries, and apples) with low fat yogurt.


• Make a delicious stir-fry with all your favorite vegetables. Make it even more balanced with lean meats (such as chicken, turkey, or beef) and whole grain noodles.


• If you love eating salads, don't exist on lettuce alone. You can grate carrots, chop up broccoli into bite-size pieces, add grape tomatoes, and slice up cucumbers for a refreshing treat.


• You can also bake your own homemade vegetable pizza. Create your pizza dough from scratch, or buy premade pizza crust from your local grocery store. Slather the pizza crust with tomato sauce and top it off with delicious vegetables – such as black olives, sliced up green peppers, chopped mushrooms, pineapple, fresh tomatoes, and anything else you want.