Farmbrarian

A terrific book for those who want a healthy mom and baby.

We’re back! Sorry for the silence on the site. Erin and I relocated across the country (we’re enjoying Western Michigan nowadays) and were very busy with all that entails. Simply put, life got in the way, but we’re planning to get on track with books. I should note that going forward we might stray from the normal genre of books we normally post about. Quite frankly, we haven’t found as many in the sustainable agriculture genre worth bragging about lately, plus our interests might be morphing a little bit.

On another note, we could use some help sourcing and reviewing books. If you’re interested, contact us.

And now, a book!

I’ll just come out and say it: I’m a fan of Nina Planck. You might recall my review of her first book, Real Food, and now I’m featuring her follow up aimed at mothers and young (or unborn) babies.In Real Food for Mother and Baby: The Fertility Diet, Eating for Two and Baby’s First Foods, Planck takes us from preconception through introducing first foods using her common sense, no-science-required approach. In reality, she does bring in some science, but she does such a wonderful job of making the science available without making it necessary. Truly, anyone can read this book.

It is important to note that Planck’s food recommendations are not those of your standard dietitian or obstetrician. Fortunately for me, I am not your standard dietitian, and the result is that I echo her recommendations to anyone that will listen.

So what does she recommend? For foods introduced to the baby for the first time, Planck suggests meat, liver, fish or roe, egg yolk, banana and avocado. This definitely stands in stark contrast to most standard medical care, which will suggest first introducing iron-fortified cereal, followed by fruit, then vegetable, then meat. The fact that iron-fortified, heavily processed cereal is a very recent food to humans should be enough to suggest it might not be a great first food for your baby. Indeed prior generations, perhaps your grandparents or great-grandparents, would have told you Planck’s recommendations are no big surprise, and they probably would have been appalled at the idea of feeding a young child a processed food instead of meat or vegetable. Quite frankly, the thought still appalls me today.

In addition to these non-mainstream recommendations, Planck discusses how to use diet to promote fertility, healthy pregnancy and lactation. She also discusses the ups and downs of her personal pregnancy story. This story alone is worth the read for would be mothers anticipating a natural birth. The book is a terrific read for anyone pregnant or contemplating trying, and also for anyone generally interested in human health and nutrition.

On Amazon or at your local library.