This pregnancy is my third and most people i've talked to said that for some reason there third pregnancy had more sickness than others. For me personally the first two weeks were fine but the next eight I was in pretty bad shape as far as even being able to function in my daily life. With two children to care for on top of being sick things like housework and make up soon became memories. I am 16 Weeks In and only now have I felt well enough to do an overhaul of my kitchen and start to get things back on track. One of the things that I could not do for those weeks that I was sick was to swallow down pills, not even the smallest prenatal. I already knew that our bodies do not absorb the vitamins or minerals from pills very well but you are always told how important your prenatals are to the development of your child. Not taking them had me worried and so I looked into the nutrients in them and where else I might be able to get what I needed. Every brand of pill will differ slightly in the amount of each nutrient that is in the pill but since our bodies don't absorb most of it from the pill anyways i just tried to get close to the amount found in my once a day pills that I had on hand.
Getting all of the B-vitamins needed into my diet without pills soon proved to be the most difficult as these are mostly found in animal products, I am not a vegetarian by any means but I also am not a meat lover. And while I make a really yummy clam chowder my taste tolerance to seafood is really low. Good for me then that I learned that you don't actually have to take every vitamin every day and that to get the vitamin b-12 you need having clam chowder once a week actually was enough.
I was also surprised to find out that paprika and chili powder contained most of the vitamins and minerals in my prenatals the only problem was that you could never eat enough of the spice to get a good daily value but adding them to my other foods would help.
One Tablespoon of paprika for example will give you 5% of the daily value of Niacin also called B3. .So by adding this to something like potato salad I improved that dish to include more of the vitamins my baby needs.
Many foods contain more than one vitamin or mineral and these I try to get most every day like Eggs, Kale, Sunflower Seeds, Almonds, Spinach, and even Dark Chocolate.
The amount of seeds that you would need to eat each day to get all of your B Vitamins is ridiculous and so I took Sunflower seeds, Almonds, Pine Nuts, Peanuts, Pistachios, and Pumpkin seeds and ground them all together and made a butter that I spread on my toast in the morning or on a sandwich for a snack or lunch. As for other vitamins I make a smoothie in the morning from yogurt, berries and whey powder with almond milk and some kale juice that I juiced myself to start my day and get my body absorbing what it needs. I scramble about eight eggs in the morning for me and the family and add hot sauce on that also adding things like cheese, milk, green peppers, onions, whatever I feel like that day into the eggs gives them more of a boost.
I also juice fruits and veggies to get a good size glass at least every other day. into this i put things like two green apples two large carrots a yellow bell pepper about three cups of Kale, a cup of spinach a small tomato two celery stalks one half or one tiny clove of garlic and a cup of asparagus if i have it on hand, ,I also throw in herbs like parsley and thyme this will give me a little less than 16 ounces of juice from my particular juicer. this juice gives me lots of vitamin A and C along with the Folic acid my baby needs and a little zinc, calcium, vitamin E, and vitamin B.
So its more complicated to get everything this way but if you eat healthy you're probably already eating most of the vitamins and minerals you need. Plus this is more natural, your body absorbs what it needs easily from the foods and especially the juice. Also you get to control the sources for the vitamins and minerals this way.
add to this routine above a healthy dinner with a serving of meat or seafood and you get everything you need in a week this way without trying to choke down a pill that will in all reality probably not give you the things your body needs.
