The Blog
Miso Quinoa Stuffed Squash
It’s so important that a new mother eats energizing and nourishing foods, but with such little time to spare in the early days, she can use as much help as she can get. I made this stuffed squash dish for a friend who recently had her baby. It makes a wonderfully thoughtful offering for a new family because it presents really well and it’s also healthy, but it tastes like comfort food.
Planning Another Baby? Why Your Fertility Nutrition Matters
Women often consider using nutrition to prepare their bodies before becoming pregnant for the first time, but it's rarely considered for a second or third (or fourth or fifth) pregnancy. Once a woman has had a child, especially if she conceived with relative ease, she considers herself sufficiently fertile and probably doesn't think she needs nutrition to boost her fertility.
Maca Fertility Fudge
Every ingredient in this maca fertility fudge has been added for its fertility boosting properties. These tasty treats are stored in the freezer and help to balance blood sugar, stabilize energy, and provide lasting satiation.
These fudge squares are little bombs of healthy saturated and monounsaturated fat to nourish and support fertility. With the fat-free fad thankfully mostly behind us, many people are starting to embrace the fact that we really need healthy fat to function optimally. Nothing else that we eat (or don’t eat) has a bigger impact on our reproductive capabilities, but unfortunately, there’s still some confusion around what fats are good for us. I’d like to write a long post about this subject soon, but for now, I’ll try to simplify things as much as possible.
What We Ate: Thanksgiving Dinner Roasted On An Open Fire
We spent Thanksgiving at our off-the-grid cabin, a few hours north of Whistler, Canada. It’s such a magical place to be this time of year. The air is crisp, but still mild and the trees are bursting with colour. Friends of ours built a cabin on a nearby property and hosted an outdoor Thanksgiving feast, roasted over an open fire.
Why Your Baby Should Be Eating Fermented Foods
Offering children a variety of foods helps to broaden their palates, but "sour" is an important flavour that isn't usually given to little ones in western cultures. Traditionally fermented foods are a wonderful way to introduce sour flavours. Many children consume highly processed foods that are overwhelmingly sweet and salty. Giving fermented foods to children from an early age can actually lessen their desire to over consume sweet foods.
How I Prepped My Body For Pregnancy
To call the changes and adjustments a woman’s body goes through during pregnancy "miraculous" would be a bit of an understatement. Although a miracle, the reality is that carrying a child through those 40 weeks does take a toll on your body in many ways. Not all pregnancies are planned, but having time to prepare yourself physically definitely provides many benefits to you and your baby, even long after birth.
The best things a woman could do to prep her body really varies for each person, depending on her starting point. Some important things to consider addressing would be….
Salted Maple Hazelnut Fudgsicles
This week we celebrated the fall equinox. I absolutely love fall, it's my favorite season. The crisp air makes me feel energized and I can't get enough of the golden leaves on trees, wool sweaters, stove fires, hot tea... I adore it all. I should probably be posting about seasonally appropriate things like root vegetables, squash, and warming soups, but I had to get one more summertime treat in! These fudgsicles are dairy-free and use "nice cream" as a base, which is simply blending frozen bananas to make delicious soft-serve ice cream with wonderful consistency.
Mango Ginger Creamsicles
These mango ginger creamsicles are a kid-friendly treat and wonderful on a warm day. The ginger in them is subtle, but it’s a great ingredient to broaden your little one’s palate. Introducing your children to a wide variety of flavours from a young age can help them to be less picky. Using new flavours in their favorite treats is easier on the less adventurous child: like ginger in creamsicles.
What We Ate: Camping
It can be challenging to stay committed to healthy eating when you're out of your daily routine. My family travels often, so I've had some practice and this series "What We Ate" was created to share some of the ways I've managed to keep us eating well when we're away from home.
Baby's First Finger Foods: Size, Shape, Texture & Flavor
When babies begin eating finger foods, stick or finger shaped foods are great for them to practice with. This allows your baby to firmly hold the food in the palm of their hand and bite off little pieces (with or without teeth). If using baby-led weaning, the stick shape is fantastic for babies who have not yet developed their pincer grasp. Stick shape is still recommended even if your baby was fed purees first and their pincer grasp has already developed by the time they begin finger foods. It helps them to bite, chew, and learn how much food they can safely manage in their mouths.
Garlic Cumin Yam Fries - Great For Baby
This is a great recipe for the whole family. Baby food doesn't have to be bland! After you've introduced your little one to simple and unseasoned foods, you can try adding different herbs and spices to broaden their palate and encourage them to be more adventurous eaters. This recipe for yam fries is a great example of this because it includes garlic & cumin.
Homemade Almond Milk
Guest post by Eve from www.underthebigfirtree.com
I recently met with Carley for a nutrition consultation. I’ve been feeling like I need to switch things up. As a new mama I’ve not been feeling like myself very much lately. She was wonderful and so incredibly knowledgeable. After everything she said, I responded with “That’s interesting.” “That’s really interesting.” “Hmm interesting.” Nutrition is so cool!
The Birth Story Of Clementine
Written by mama, Melissa
I knew before I ever got pregnant that I wanted to have an unmedicated birth. After all, my mom had seven, yes SEVEN, natural births. My husband and I had completed Bradley Method childbirth classes and were both onboard for a healthy, active pregnancy and birth.
I had switched over from an OB doctor to a group of midwives at a natural birthing center at around week 26 of my pregnancy. I had a friendly, capable doctor, however she was not completely onboard with my idea of an intervention-free birth, so we made the switch even though I was well along in my pregnancy. The experience and care I received there was night and day with my experience in the OB office. I was finally ready and excited to continue with the pregnancy under their care and birth at the birthing center.
Foods To Support The Post Weaning Blues
Many breastfeeding mothers find the process of weaning to be emotional. Breastfeeding is a sacred act of bonding and it can be difficult to give up on those quiet moments shared together. Besides the emotional aspect, when breastfeeding becomes less frequent or stops completely you can experience a significant hormonal shift as well.
Delayed postpartum depression, also referred to as post-weaning depression, can surface in varying degrees as a direct result of weaning. It’s more than the general wistful feeling of your baby “growing up entirely too fast”. In some women it can make the everyday tasks of life and motherhood feel completely overwhelming and exhausting.
Labor-Aid: An Energizing Lemon-Lime Electrolyte Drink
During early labor it’s beneficial to continue eating light and nourishing foods to keep energy up, but as sensations start to intensify food often becomes the last thing on a laboring woman’s mind.
Just like any other intense physical activity, staying hydrated throughout labor is also crucial. It’s especially important to ensure that the liquid you consume contains electrolytes. Electrolytes are required for muscle contractions and without them muscles become weak and contractions of the uterus can be less effective.
The Birth Story of Leo: A Vaginal Breech
Written by mama, Alexis
Oh birth… you are such an interesting beast.
I had no idea what to really expect when it came time to give birth. My husband squirms at the site of blood, or any bodily fluids, so the thought of catching a baby made him a little green. When we told my mother that we were planning a home birth I think she wondered if I had paid my taxes and my father kept asking, “What’s a Doooula?” - assuming we were incorporating voodoo into the birth. Then there was the neighbor who felt the need to warn us against a home birth because her friend ended up being rushed to the hospital. Oh, and when we mentioned we had enrolled in a hypnobabies class they all really thought we’d lost our nut. Every birth is different, every woman is different, and every baby is different. We all have our own beliefs and expectations going into birth, and I am so glad that I went into mine informed and on the one side of the spectrum and not the other.
Build Healthy Habits For Babies & Avoid Picky Toddlers
We all possess intrinsic wisdom of how to best nourish ourselves. Although most adults have become extremely disconnected from their body’s own signals and have lost touch with when to eat and how much food they truly need. This disconnect from hunger/satiation cues can start very early in life if babies are introduced to solid foods with someone else dictating how much they should be eating. When given the opportunity and presented with healthy options, babies know how much to eat and which foods they need to properly nourish themselves.
Natural Inductions & Possible Complications
Maybe you’re reaching your estimated due date and feel like it’s "time to do something". Or maybe you've gone past your due date with an antsy obstetrician and the threat of artificial induction is looming. If your intention is to have a natural labour and birth, be careful with the use of 'natural' methods of induction.
Any medicine, herb, or technique used to force the body/baby before it's ready can have unwanted effects and consequences. Natural birth involves a very complex series of events, with each one setting off the next. Inductions may "work", but they can also disrupt the delicate cascade of physical changes that happen during labour: triggering Y before X.
Naturally Relieving Constipation in Babies
Before babies begin on solid foods, their elimination patterns can vary greatly. Some breastfed babies will have 5 bowel movements a day, while other healthy babies only have one every 5 days. Infrequent bowel movements in a breasted baby isn’t a cause for concern, as long as they have sufficient wet diapers, continue to gain weight well, seem content and comfortable, and their stool isn’t hard and dry.
Egg Yolks For Babies
While I believe in eating whole foods, I prefer to feed younger babies egg yolks only. Their stomachs are small, so whatever food they eat should be as nutrient-dense as possible. Egg white omelets were the rage for a while, but the truth is: nutritionally speaking, egg yolks trump whites. The whites have mostly protein, sodium, and potassium, but the yolk is where the most beneficial nutrients are found. They are stocked with B vitamins, healthy fats, choline, and the harder to obtain fat-soluble vitamins A & D. Also, allergies and sensitivities to the proteins found in egg white are much more common.