Eating Right - Tweaking Recipes

David Bock — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 14:08:00 -0400

One of the books we first looked at when Lorna got pregnant included an excellent description of the nutritional needs a woman pregnant with multiples will need – this includes things like extra protein, extra calcium, and other things you might thnk it takes to build a baby. With multiples, of course, you need more of it.

Since I love to cook, I came up with several different recipes using this information, but as we got further along in the pregnancy, I found myself with less and less time to do the cooking.

I’m sharing this recipe here so that other people with multiples might find it useful. Add a comment if you try it!

Nutritional Considerations and Ingredients

Flax Seed Oil

With 3 developing brains, mothers of multiples should be trying to get a decent amount of the good oils like Omega-3 (the source of the ‘fish is brain food’ meme). Flax Seed oil is great for this. I use it in almost any recipe in place of margerine, butter, or vegetable oil. You can definitely find it in any health food store. This is crucial for multiples – as a lot of brain growth happens in the last trimester, which will likely be cut short ifyou have to deliver early. Giving them this edge up early can help.

Extra Protein

Protein is important too. you can add dry milk to just about any baked good recipe to pump up its protein content. Experiment with your recipe to see how much you can add – this will make baked good brown a little faster.

Soy Milk

I also use soy milk in baked goods in place of milk or water. Lorna doesn’t like the taste of it for drinking, but in something baked, you’d never know the difference. Why soy milk? Soy is a nutritionally complete protein; it provides everything a growing baby needs. In particular, I use Silk brand Soy Milk, which comes in several variations. the two most useful for pregnancy supplementation are the one with Omega-3s and DHA (again, useful for brain development), and the unsweetened one (if mother needs to control gestational diabetes).

Eggs

I also make a point of using eggs that claim to have Omega-3 levels higher than ordinary eggs. Our grocery store contains several brands that claim this. By the way, if you add powdered milk to a recipe (as described above) I have found you can add an extra egg to any recipes that call for 2 already… further bumping up some nutritional value.

Other Things

If you can eat them, nuts are good – they contain trace elements, other good oils, etc. I will also occasionally add benefiber to some baked goods – it mixes in without changing the balance of the recipe at all, and can help with some ‘other issues’ often experienced late in pregnancy.

Since we are going to use those guidelines to enhance package mixes, realize that the nutritional value of what you create will largely depend on the package mix you are enhancing. So follow this advice too:

Don’t buy a package mix if the nutritional label shows any trans-fats. They are evil – if nothing else, they will make it harder for you to lose your pregnancy weight… worse, they can set your kids up for weight issues.
Avoid artificial sweeteners. I’m allergic to nutrasweet, so I think they are evil anyway. They provide nothing of value and run the risk of messing up you and your children, so why mess with them?
When comparing two mixes, choose the one with the lower saturated fat and the lower suger. If you subtract the sugars from the total carbohydrates, you’ll get a rough idea how much complex carbohydrates the mix has… these are good.

Putting it All Together – Pumpkin Loaf

As much as I love to bake, I’d love to share a recipe that starts with roasting and mashing pumpkins… but sorry, not today. I bought a pumpkin loaf mix at the grocery store that met my requirements above, and tweaked it as follows:

Used soy milk (with Omega-3 and DHA) instead of water
Added dry milk (it would have reconsituted to a quart)
Used Flax Seed Oil instead of margerine or butter
Used 3 eggs instead of 2 (and used Omega-3 eggs)
Added 2 cups of walnuts
added 1/4 cup of benefiber

The end result? delicious! I could feed this to guests and I don’t think they’d have any idea it had been tweaked at all. The addition of nuts, dry milk, an extra egg, and fiber also made the recipe much bigger – I made two 5×9 loaves, where the original recipe said it would make one.

By the way, this same technique works well with the box blueberry muffin mix (although I also add more fresh blueberries to them).

If you plan on breatfeeding, these suppliments can help support the enhanced butritional needs of the mother after delivery.

"Eating Right - Tweaking Recipes" by Allon

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 14:54:05 -0400

When Christa was pregnant, I used to enhance baked goods (and pancakes) with nonfat dried milk to increase the protein content. I still do this, as I have found that it has a side benefit of improving the texture; I guess the protein helps retain the trapped air bubbles, giving a stronger matrix or something.

Also, don’t neglect whole-grains. Wheat germ is packed with nutrition; brown rice is much more nutritious than white, and I think it tastes better too.

BockTriplets!: Eating Right - Tweaking Recipes