Importance of Fats in a Pregnant moms Diet
Pregnancy is considered to be the most important phase in a woman’s life. It is the foundation to future generations literally. When a woman is pregnant there is a lot of advice provided on what to eat and how much to eat and what’s good for the mum and baby and what’s not. Pregnant Moms need to eat every 2-3 hours which means six meals. Three would be main meals and three are considered as snacks. Let’s start with the basic concept of making a food plate. These would be your main meals. Each of your main meals must contain all the five food groups – Carbohydrates, Vegetables/Fruits, Protein, Milk Protein and Fats. All of these nutrients work in tandem with each other and hence there is maximum nutrient absorption
In this article we will look at the importance of fats in a pregnant mum’s diet.
Fats are an important part of your diet as well. Fats are also considered a nutrient as they aid in the absorption of fat soluble vitamins – A, D, E and K. The total intake of fats in a 24 hour period is 6 tspns which includes all the oil in your cooking, the ghee on your rotis and the butter on your bread. Hence this naturally leaves no room for fried foods. It is best that fats are obtained from unsaturated sources like almonds, walnuts, flax seeds, olive oil etc and very little amounts from saturated sources like butter, ghee, malai, cooking oil etc. Excessive consumption of saturated fats will raise your cholestrol levels and also result in excessive weight gain. Saturated fats do sneak in even in red meats, chicken if consumed with the skin, egg yellow, and some sea foods if consumed in excess. Very limited use of saturated fats like vegetable oil, butter and ghee is recommended. Consumption of ghee especially in the ninth month is not going to make the delivery easier. This is a very common myth and many pregnant moms are encouraged to consume a lot of ghee in the last few weeks to ease the labor process. In fact all that will happen is excessive weight gain and this may make the delivery all the more difficult.