The Better Baby Book (5 page)

Carbohydrates

About 1 percent of the human body is carbohydrates. This means that carbs, by themselves, are not the best building block for your baby, because your baby is not made of them. It's possible for your body to convert carbs into fats and proteins, but the energy required for that conversion would be better used directly for your baby's growth. Carbs include sugars, starches, and fiber. Grains, potatoes, breads, pastas, and sweets are mostly carbohydrates.

We'll discuss choosing (and avoiding many) carbs in chapters 4 and 5, but the bottom line is that carbs satisfy us for a very short time because they aren't what our bodies want in a food. They make us full for a short time, but we'll quickly want to eat more—especially more carbs. This starts a repetitive cycle of carbohydrate intake and stops us from eating the good fats and proteins our bodies and our babies really need. It also exposes a baby to big fluctuations in insulin, potentially setting him or her up for diabetes later in life.

Today the United States has epidemics of diabetes and obesity. Some of this is linked to an excessive intake of refined carbs in the U.S. food supply. For your baby's sake, pregnancy is one of the most important times not to be diabetic or obese.

What Brains Are Made Of

The diagram below shows what brains are made of. Like the rest of the body, the brain is mostly made of water. Skeletal muscle is about 75 percent water, for example, whereas the brain is 77 percent. The next largest component of the brain is fat (12 percent, with lots of cholesterol), followed by protein (8 percent), and a minimal amount of minerals and carbohydrates.

Healthy fats are critical to a healthy brain, and making a new brain for your baby is next to impossible without them. Cholesterol is used heavily throughout the brain. The brain also needs a lot of choline, a nutrient that is attached to healthy fats. Growing brains also need plenty of essential omega fats. To supply a baby's growing brain, the concentrations of certain omega-3 and omega-6 fats are three to four times higher in a healthy newborn than they are in adults. These omega-3 and omega-6 fats are used in cell membranes and in special signaling molecules in the brain and the nervous system, but they still make up a small percentage of the total fat in the brain.

What women's bodies are made of

Fetuses don't store much fat until the third trimester, when they begin storing fat rapidly, most of it saturated and monounsaturated. Unlike adults, babies aren't storing the types of fat burned for energy—they're storing the types that will continue to build their brains. Your baby is storing this healthy fat to make sure that brain building blocks are available for him or her after birth. This shows how essential it is to eat plenty of healthy fats throughout pregnancy and while nursing.

The protein in the brain includes some very special amino acids. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. Some important brain amino acids are glutamine, gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), and carnitine. Glutamine helps muscles grow and fuels the brain. Supplementing with it does wonders for tired mothers and fathers. GABA is both an amino acid and a neurotransmitter (a substance that transmits nerve impulses). Carnitine is an amino acid that fuels brain function and the growth of new neurons. We explain how to work glutamine, carnitine, and other supplements into your diet in chapter 7.

The brain is only 1 percent carbohydrates. Much of this is glycogen, which brain cells quickly burn for energy. Glycogen is central to proper brain function, but a low-carb diet provides enough glycogen for optimal brain function because our bodies can convert protein into glycogen. Although the brain needs some carbs, it doesn't need a lot, and it doesn't benefit from high-carb diets.

For a baby's growing brain to get the support it needs, there are two key brain components that the diet has to support: ganglia and neurotransmitters. Dendrites connect individual neurons (brain cells), which allow us to learn and become better problem solvers. Neurotransmitters are chemicals that brain cells use to communicate with one another. Some neurotransmitters you might have heard of are GABA, serotonin, and dopamine. Once the dendrites connect two neurons, the neurons can use the neurotransmitters to talk to one another. Anything that encourages new neurons to form or ganglia to grow and connect them is likely to be great for a baby's growing brain. Chapters 5 and 7 explain exactly what foods and supplements you need to support ganglia and neurotransmitters.

We have explained brain makeup to show that the brain is made of the exact same things as the rest of the body—it's almost all water, fats, and proteins. The same diet that supports a baby's growing body supports the baby's brain, too. And with all the developments in neuroscience in the past fifty years, we can even give the brain an extra boost by adding special fats and amino acids the brain needs to work its best.

If you're on statin medications to lower your cholesterol, it's important you get off the drugs before pregnancy. Low cholesterol in mothers can serve to prevent fetal brain growth. Babies are made of cholesterol that comes from mothers!

What Bodies Are Not Made Of

For the healthiest, most intelligent baby possible, the most important thing to remember is that our food should contain the same things that we're made of: mostly water, healthy fats, proteins, and minerals, along with some vegetables containing vitamins and fiber. A lot of the foods in your local grocery store aren't made of these things at all, though. The foods in your local store often contain harmful fats, denatured proteins, and too many carbohydrates. On top of that, harmful chemical additives, artificial colorings, preservatives, pesticides, fungicides, and heavy metals like mercury are common. None of those belong in a baby's body, and all of them have a negative impact on a baby's development.

When something goes into our bodies, we break it down and use it or excrete it. Much of the time, things that aren't supposed to be there don't just do nothing, they cause harm as we break them down. As parents, we wanted to make sure that the right things were there for our babies and that the wrong things weren't. The next chapter advises you on what not to eat, and that's followed by a chapter that advises you on what is good for you to eat.

The old adage “You are what you eat” is precisely true, physically speaking—the foods we eat turn into our bodies. The point of this chapter has been that it takes nothing more than common sense to build a healthy baby. We humans know instinctively that we should eat foods that our bodies can use. We have presented the facts in this chapter to show why a good diet is so important: we eat things that are easy for our bodies to use and avoid foods our bodies aren't made of.

Some medical doctors, health-care professionals, and nutritionists disapprove of the diet we advocate, despite the large volume of supporting research. Yet this diet makes perfect sense to us not only because of the research but also because it has made us, our babies, and our friends who have tried it noticeably healthier and happier than any alternative diet we or they have tried. When you cast aside oversimplified headlines, the preponderance of evidence in human nutrition supports our principles.

In the coming chapters, we will describe a precise plan for providing your body with everything it needs to run properly and make a baby at the same time—at least everything we know of. Greater advances will surely be made in the future. But for now, the latest research and science is described right here in this book.

4

What Not to Eat

Here is the Better Baby approach to cooking:

• Cook slowly on low heat.
  
• Avoid blackening and charring.
  
• Cook with oils made of saturated fats and avoid cooking with monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fats.
  
• Avoid pasteurization, especially pasteurized dairy products.
  
• Eat a large percentage of your diet raw. It's healthy, and it protects your body from the harmful aspects of cooked foods.
  

Now let's take a look at what foods not to eat.

Fried or Overcooked Food

There are several reasons to avoid fried and overcooked foods:

• Most fats oxidize when heated. (Why this is bad is explained in the following section.)
  
• Proteins denature (become malformed) when heated.
  
• Cooking often produces harmful mutagens (agents that produce mutations).
  
• Cooking can cause a Maillard reaction (also explained in the following sections).
  
• Cooked food is harder to digest.
  

Oxidation

Frying and grilling usually oxidizes food—at least some parts of it. This includes panfrying, grilling, and especially deep frying. When food oxidizes, it's actually mixing chemically with the oxygen in the air. The result is that the oxygen in the air steals (oxidates) negatively charged electrons from the food molecules. When this happens, the molecules that lost electrons become ionic and frantically search for replacement electrons. These frantic searchers are called
free radicals
.

The result is that fried or overcooked food is positively charged. Since the molecules in the food are striving to balance their charges, when that food is eaten, it will steal electrons from the molecules of the body. When the molecules that make up the body lose electrons to the overcooked food, they also become imbalanced and positively charged, and a chain reaction ensues. Entire cells can die from this, and even a mass killing of cells can result. If this process is not stopped, the chain reaction can be the beginning of inflammation, cancer, and degenerative disease.

Many health foods mitigate free radical activity because they contain antioxidant molecules. Antioxidants donate electrons to free radicals without becoming free radicals themselves. Vitamin C, vitamin E, and omega-3 fatty acids are powerful antioxidants. Free radicals are satiated when their stolen electrons are returned to them, and they stop searching. The result is called
reduction
, the addition of electrons to a molecule, which is the opposite of
oxidation
, when electrons are stolen.

There are visible signs of oxidation that can help you to avoid oxidized foods. An example of very gentle oxidation is the brown color that appears on the interior of fruit (such as an apple) when it is exposed to the air. Many things oxidize just from air exposure; they don't even need heat. The charring or blackening that happens to food as it fries or grills indicates more severe oxidation. Any discoloration in the direction of brown or black is a telltale sign.

Denatured Protein

Proteins become denatured (malformed) when heated. When proteins are denatured, they're often less useful and can even be harmful to the body. The milk protein casein is a good example: once heated, casein becomes inflammatory inside the body. Any type of cooking can cause protein to denature—all it takes is heat. Denatured protein is one reason we recommend cooking lightly and at a low temperature, avoiding pasteurized products, and using only cold-processed protein supplements.

Mutagens

Cooking food produces mutagens. Mutagens are molecules that alter DNA in living cells and increase the risk of the cell becoming cancerous. Mutagens have been found even after gentle broiling and appear to be unavoidable. Raw vegetables have been shown to counteract mutagenic activity, and they also have antioxidant properties. The main idea here is to eat plenty of raw food with your lightly cooked food.

Maillard Reaction

During cooking, a chemical process known as the Maillard reaction can occur between carbohydrates and proteins. These reactions produce Maillard reaction products (MRPs), which include inflammatory carcinogens called
heterocyclic amines
. Cooking foods like milk that contain plenty of carbs and proteins together can easily result in MRPs. Gentle cooking produces fewer MRPs than faster cooking at higher heat (overcooking).

Difficult Digestion

Overcooked food strains the digestive system, which then needs more metabolic energy to operate. The brain and the digestive system end up competing for metabolic energy. Food that's harder to digest decreases the amount of energy the body could otherwise devote to brain function, development, learning, and memory. Eating raw and lightly cooked food leaves more energy for your baby to develop.

Genetically Modified Foods

When a food is genetically engineered, the source plant or animal's genes have been directly altered, making it a genetically modified organism (GMO). GMO foods are now very common. Typical GMO crops include canola, corn, cottonseed, and soybeans. In some cases, most of the supply is now GMOs, including 91 percent of soybeans and 60 percent of corn. Products that are made from these GMO crops include canola, corn, cottonseed, and soy oils; maltodextrin; most soy lecithins; and high-fructose corn syrup. Some zucchini, yellow squash, papaya, rennet (used to make cheese), and aspartame are also GMOs. GMO sugar beets are in use in the United States.

The research evidence against GMO food consumption is overwhelming. Jeffrey Smith, author of
Genetic Roulette: The Dangers of GMOs
, wrote that GMO foods have been “linked to toxic and allergic reactions, sick, sterile, and dead livestock, and damage to virtually every organ studied in lab animals.” In humans, GMO foods have been linked to autoimmune disorders, inflammation, and severe food allergies. Research has led entire countries like France, Germany, and New Zealand to ban GMO farming and foods.

GMO foods have become common only in the last twenty years. It's no coincidence that during that time, the U.S. population has suffered a 400 percent increase in allergies, a 300 percent increase in asthma, a 400 percent increase in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and a 1,500 percent increase in other autism spectrum disorders. Food-related illness doubled between 1994 and 2001. Soy began to be genetically modified in 1996. In 1996 alone, soy allergies increased by 50 percent, and soy became one of the top ten allergens in the nation.

In the United States, GMO products are not required to be labeled as such. One way to avoid them is to avoid products that contain typically GMO crops and derivative substances, which have been listed above. Unfortunately, the number of GMO foods in the United States seems to be growing every day. Even as we were writing this book, a plan for GMO salmon was announced. It's necessary to check almost every food you buy.

The only fail-safe way to avoid GMO products is to eat certified U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) organic foods. At the time we wrote this book, for a food to be certified USDA organic, it had to be GMO-free. But we can't guarantee that this will always be true.

An easy way to check produce is to glance at the price lookup sticker. If the sticker contains a four-digit number, the product was conventionally grown. This usually means that synthetic fertilizers and pesticides were used, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the product is a GMO. If the sticker contains a five-digit number beginning with an 8, the product is a GMO, and you should avoid it. If the sticker contains a five-digit number beginning with a 9, it's an organic product and has never been exposed to synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, growth hormones, irradiation, or antibiotics, and it contains no GMO ingredients. That's what you want.

Unhealthy Fats

Throughout this book we recommend eating a diet high in healthy fats. This section is about the fats you'll definitely want to avoid. It helps to understand the differences between different types of fats.
Saturated
simply means that a fat is very stable in air and heat and won't turn rancid very easily. Butter, coconut oil, and animal fat from healthy animals are largely saturated.
Unsaturated fats
easily become rancid when exposed to oxygen or heat.
Polyunsaturated fats
like canola and corn oil (known as omega-6 oils) are extremely unstable and should be minimized. Monounsaturated fats like olive oil are great to eat but break down easily when cooked.
Hydrogenation
is the industrial process of chemically turning any oil into one that is heat stable but damaged. Hydrogenation is the process that makes trans-fats.

All of this matters because you should avoid eating oxidized oils before and during your pregnancy.

Cooking Oils

Most cooking oils, including canola, corn, cottonseed, peanut, safflower, soybean, sunflower, and vegetable (hereafter called “bad oils”), are unhealthy, especially when they're heated for cooking. There are four reasons to avoid bad oils and any product that contains them:

Bad oils contain two kinds of bad fat. The first is excessive levels of omega-6 polyunsaturated fat, which is found in all of them. The second is trans fat, which is contained in any hydrogenated oil. When you find these oils bottled in the supermarket for sale, they won't usually be hydrogenated. But many of these oils are hydrogenated before they're used in packaged food products like crackers and cookies.

Omega-6 fatty acids aren't harmful in themselves. In fact, the body needs some of them. Things go wrong with omega-6 for two reasons. First, omega-6 oxidizes very easily. Exposure to sunlight is all it takes sometimes. Second, omega-6 promotes imflammation and disease when we eat too much of it without eating enough omega-3. Experts have estimated that during most of human history, the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats in the human diet was about one to one. The ratio in the modern American diet ranges between twenty to one and fifty to one! Excess omega-6 intake has been linked to cancer in numerous studies. Our diet provides all of the unoxidized omega-6 and omega-9 fats you need while being very rich in unoxidized omega-3. Omega-6 and omega-9 are so common in foods that we recommend avoiding any “healthy” omega-6 supplements like evening primrose oil.

Checklist for Avoiding Bad Oils

• Don't cook with them at home. Instead, use oils made of saturated fats, which don't oxidize as easily as monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. Good cooking fats are butter, coconut oil, palm oil, lard or bacon fat from pastured pigs, and tallow from grass-fed cows. We don't include chicken fat here for reasons we'll explain in chapter 5, and even though olive oil is a healthy oil, we don't recommend cooking with it (also explained in chapter 5).
  
• Avoid products in the grocery store that list these oils as ingredients, especially if they're hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated. You'll find them in everything from baked goods to canned protein shakes to margarine. Almost all margarines are made of bad oils; margarine is
  not
  healthier than butter—in fact, it's far worse.
  
• Avoid restaurant food that contains bad oils. This is very difficult—unhealthy oils are extremely common in restaurants, and the waitstaff often won't know the exact ingredients. During pregnancy, we pretty much avoided restaurants or asked for lightly grilled fish or steamed vegetables tossed in butter or real olive oil.
  

Synthetically Hydrogenated Trans Fat

When oils are used in baked goods like candies, cookies, crackers, and other snack products, manufacturers often synthetically hydrogenate or partially hydrogenate them. This is done so that the fats are stable in packaging and don't turn to liquid and leak in warm temperatures. Unfortunately, synthetic trans fats have been identified as the cause of countless health problems, including cancer. The most infamous and unhealthy trans fat of all is partially hydrogenated soybean oil.

Trans fat is dangerous because the body mistakes it for real fat and uses it to construct and maintain cell walls. The trouble is, trans fat is more rigid than natural fat. Cell walls made of trans fat are no longer flexible and porous enough for the cell to function properly. A host of new malformed cells are born, and the previously exiting cells are injured. If a pregnant or nursing mother eats trans fat, it will be used to make her baby, which presents all of the same dangers.

The research evidence against trans fat is so indisputable that if a product contains trans fat, the manufacturer is required to notify consumers on the product packaging. Beware of advertising that claims the product contains no trans fat—the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allows packaging to claim that a product contains no trans fat even when the trans-fat content is up to half a gram per serving. Armed with this information, you can be sure that if any hydrogenated oil is in the ingredients list, the product definitely contains trans fat. Any amount of trans fat is too much—it's just too damaging to health.

Nevertheless, even though synthetic man-made trans fats aren't healthy, some natural trans fats are. Conjugated linoleic acid is a healthy natural trans fat found in butter from grass-fed cattle.

Sugar and Excess Carbohydrates

Avoiding excess sugar and carbohydrate intake is important during pregnancy and any time of life. Not only is sugar a short-lived source of energy that results in fatigue, sugar disrupts brain and hormone function and promotes obesity, infertility, and birth defects.