Delicious Meals to Eat While You're Pregnant

The Building Blocks

• The building blocks, or macronutrients, of all meals are carbohydrates, such as rice and grains; proteins, such as meat, fish and eggs; and healthy fats like plant oils and nuts. These three elements both help you stay strong while pregnant and help your unborn child develop normally. Ideally, all your meals should include all three of these macronutrients. In addition, your meals should include micronutrients, the smaller building blocks of the body that help regulate your system̵7;s chemical processes. Learning all the micronutrients your body needs is not worth the effort, as the list is too long. Just know that you can get most of these micronutrients through ingesting adequate amounts of fruits and vegetables.

Foods to Avoid

• Before making a meal plan, know what you should be avoiding as a pregnant woman. When pregnant, your immune system weakens to a certain degree, making your body more susceptible to foodborne illnesses. For this reason, avoid raw foods, foods that have been sitting around unheated, or foods that might have been prepared in an unsanitary manner. When in doubt, throw it out. Also avoid fish with high levels of mercury content, such as mackerel and albacore. Pregnancy is a time at which you need to be especially careful with what you eat, for both you and your child.

Other Issues

• Pregnant women need to increase the amounts of foods high in certain vitamins and minerals. Pregnant women tend to experience deficiencies in iron and calcium. For iron, consider eating liver, nuts and fully-cooked red meats. By supplementing meals containing these ingredients with a vitamin-C heavy foods such as peppers, guavas and fresh herbs, you help your body absorb the iron at a more efficient rate. To get your needed calcium, add to your diet more dark leafy greens, low-fat milk and yogurt.

Example Meals

• Pregnant women vary widely on their tastes due to hormonal changes, mood and personal preference. But many popular meals throughout the world can satisfy the palates of many pregnant women while still giving them the nutrition they need. For example, stir-fried chicken with Chinese cabbage is both high in protein and calcium. Simmered pinto beans are high in protein and carbohydrates and go with practically everything. Try them with green vegetables and bacon for extra minerals and protein. For pregnant women who want a vegetarian meal, opting for whole-grain breads is a good decision, as whole grains are high in protein, carbohydrates and iron. You can dip whole-grain Italian bread in olive oil to add some flavor and healthy fats to your meal.