Did you have any strange food cravings in your pregnancy?

Question

And did you go right off foods you usually like? I craved cream cheese sandwiches, and the thought of any green vegetables made me nearly puke!!!! (I usually love them!) Isn't it amazing what pregnancy does to your senses????

Answer 1

Before I was pregnant we bought a fry daddy. It was fun making fried foods in the house, and they were Yummy! When I got pregnant we bought breaded shrimp to put in the fry daddy. It stunk the whole house up, I thought I was going to be sick. I had to sit out side till the house aired out it was the most awful smell I ever smelled. Still to this day (my Son is 12 weeks) we have not used the fry daddy again!
I craved Strawberry sundaes a lot. I was like 6 ,7 months pregnant in the summer. I wanted the works Hot fudge,cherry,whip cream, strawberry sauce, So good! That was my only craving tho and when i wanted one I HAD to have it!

Answer 2

Before I even knew I was pregnant, I started craving salt. For the entire pregnancy I could not eat, smell or even look at photos in magazines of chicken or turkey and even the words "chicken" and "turkey" caused a reaction in me. I craved beer, which I do not normally drink and did not drink but it was a weird craving... I also craved cheeseburgers with raw onion.

Answer 3

I craved pasta! I had it like everyday. And the thought or smell of any meat mad me want to puke. It is weird how pregnancy changes you.. I heard you crave whatever you lack in your diet. The body is brilliant!

Answer 4

I HATE Twinkies!! yet even as i became about 5 a million/2 months pregnant all i might want to eat for 3 days instantly became Twinkies and Mt. Dew. I also went by ability of a field of Frosted Mini Wheats daily and made a pot of warm chili each evening. I guess thats why i gained in basic terms about one hundred lbs!

Answer 5

In a position paper titled Nutrition and Lifestyle for a Healthy Pregnancy Outcome currently posted on the American Dietetic Association Web site, some of the most common foods craved during pregnancy are chocolate, citrus fruits, pickles, chips and ice cream.

Where Do Food Cravings Come From?

"Currently, there is no scientific data confirming why particular cravings occur," says Brad Imler, president of the American Pregnancy Association.

Imler says professionals speculate that it's a reaction to a shift in hormones, the body's attempt to get certain vitamins and minerals that may be lacking or an underlying psychological means for indulging in certain delicacies. There is even some speculation that certain cravings are related to an iron deficiency.

"Probably the safer speculation would be [food cravings] are caused by a combination of these factors," says Imler.

There is no scientific evidence linking food cravings with certain vitamin or mineral deficiencies, counters Rachel Brandeis of Atlanta, Ga., a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association (ADA).

When your hormones surge, you experience peaks and valleys, so it makes sense that food cravings increase, says Brandeis.

Women going through the menstrual cycle often have sweet or salty cravings. In pregnancy those cravings, along with others, may be magnified. Hormonal swings during pregnancy also strengthen your sense of smell, which heavily affects taste, and are powerful enough to influence food selections.

Marcia Pelchat, PhD, a cravings expert at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, says there are many theories as to what causes pregnancy cravings but little in the way of evidence. Fruit and ice cream cravings may be your body's way of making sure you get the vitamin C and calcium your baby needs to develop, Pelchat says, but there's no scientific proof.

Are these weird cravings for pickles and ice cream trying to tell you something important, or are they a force to be resisted? And why are some women plagued by them while others barely change their diets? And while we're at it, has any pregnant woman ever actually craved pickles with ice cream? We may never know.

Anecdotal evidence for meat cravings during pregnancy is rampant; but so are meat aversions. Some of the most common cravings are for sour foods, carbohydrates, and sweets. Some have theorized that this is a Darwinian mechanism intended to ensure that pregnant women get enough calories to nourish the developing fetus, especially if they're nauseated and not keeping much food down. Others suspect pregnant women might just be seeking comfort food because they feel so bad.

One U.S. study of taste changes across pregnancy was published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences back in 1998. It showed a wide variance among women but did find some commonalities:

Salt. An increased preference for salty foods -- hello, potato chips and pickles! -- as the pregnancy progressed. According to Pelchat, this might be explained by increased blood volume and the consequential need for more sodium.

Bitter. A decreased aversion to bitter tastes as pregnancy progresses.

Sour. An increased preference for sour foods -- hello again, pickles! -- especially during the second and third trimesters. The authors speculated that this could be the body's attempt to make sure you get a varied diet later in the pregnancy.

A number of reputable studies, Pelchat says, show an increase in carbohydrate and sweet cravings in women during the perimenstrual period (the few days before and after menstruation begins), when many of the same hormones are released as during pregnancy.

"There is a lot of evidence that hormones may drive these cravings, but no one has any idea what the mechanism might be," admits Pelchat. "Another hypothesis is that it's habitual. Women are feeling crummy, they feel like indulging, so they eat carbohydrates or chocolate." Chocolate is believed to cause the release of endorphins and/or serotonin, chemicals in the brain that make us feel better, she says.

Other reports show that up to 80 percent of women experience cravings during pregnancy, but even the experts can't agree on where these cravings come from or what they mean.

The fact that many fruits are both sweet and sour may help explain why it's such a common pregnancy craving, says Daniels. Sour tastes also seem to help curb nausea.

"Generally speaking, there is very little evidence that cravings are related to bodily need," says Pelchat, who researches physiological psychology. "We'd all really like to think that we're being virtuous when we give the baby salty potato chips, and perhaps we are, but there's just no proof."

Answer 6

i ate a lot of fruit cocktail....i craved healthy stuff the whole time i was pregnant the problem is...i threw up the whole time i was pregnant. So fruit cocktail was usually what i stuck with cause its easy to go down and even easier to come up! When id smell fastfood itd make me wanna VOMIT!

Answer 7

Not really strange, but pickles, then oranges. And for the first two months it was really hard to go to work, because of the smell. I work fast food. Normally, I don't even notice it, but for those couple of months...Wow.

And thank God that's over, because I need my job!

Answer 8

No, not really. I might get a craving really strong for something specific, but nothing abnormal.

Answer 9

i craved ice with my 3rd child - i used to buy it in the 20lb bags and that was almost all i ate during my whole pregnancy

Answer 10

most things tasted of melon, i couldnt go near anything that hinted of melon, i used to like it before, i thre up everythime i had hot chocolate which i loved, and could eat loads of cheese and cucumber or anything with cucumber infact.