Eating (Strange Foods) for Two

Being pregnant gives us women license to do a lot of things we’d never give in to otherwise. For instance, we can get out of housework that involves any kind of chemical, even finding a reason why we probably shouldn’t be around dish soap or baking soda.

We suddenly find that clutter on the floor actually looks pretty good there, and when our kid points out at the weekly round of grocery store junk food negotiations that the label on the SpaghettiOs can boasts a full serving of vegetables, we think that maybe they have a point.

That SpaghettiOs trick has only happened once at my house and they were just as disgusting as I remembered. But food is a pretty fluid discussion when I’m pregnant; because I can suddenly relate to the weird combinations of things my kids want to eat.

While I’ve experienced strange aversions to salad and red meat during specific pregnancies, across all four pregnancies, two cravings have been pretty constant. One is peanut butter, which in the seven years since I first learned I would be a mother, there have been multiple changes in thinking about whether peanut butter eaten during pregnancy puts the baby at higher risk for allergies. However, my craving didn’t care what the experts were saying.

Despite my somewhat sheepish occasional surrender to the call of peanut butter, the truly shameful craving I’ve had in all four pregnancies is for something that barely qualifies as food. Processed cheese, and specifically nacho cheese, have an absurd hold on my thoughts during early days of pregnancy, and have resulted in many a late-night run to Taco Bell for plain nachos. My cravings end in frustration, because those little containers of cheese are never enough for the number of chips. I don’t think I’m alone on this one. If I ever really take up a cause, it might be nacho cheese.

With my fourth baby, there was a new first-trimester food wooing me. I love Frankie G’s chicken wings and for some reason they were the food on my mind a few months ago.

One Sunday, I told my husband Jason that I was kind of in the mood for Frankie’s wings but we already had lunch ready and I was “sure it would pass.” A full stomach later, he sweetly zipped over to the restaurant on Telegraph Road to pick up wings because actual hunger had nothing to do with what was driving me crazy. Of course, between munching Taco Bell nachos and Frankie G’s wings, my husband is a pretty willing accomplice.

I think if all of us moms are completely honest, we have to admit that these pregnancy cravings give us some pretty awesome snacking freedom. If nothing else, the pressure to be thin and perfect eases up a little during pregnancy, with everyone lying about how glowing and beautiful you are and your belly offsetting that distinct pear shape you usually sport in non-pregnant days.  

I love the excuse to eat strange things that I normally probably crave, but in non-pregnant days I push them out of my mind with thoughts of healthier choices. And nachos and hot wings aren’t strange, anyway, but just seem strange because it’s so urgent. I mean, I’m not popping open a can of cat food or anything.

In addition, though I save my emergencies for true emergencies, I know that my husband kind of likes taking care of me in this way. I don’t ask for emergency food delivery very often, though, so when I want pizza at 11:30 on a Tuesday night, he doesn’t even ask how badly I need it. And the fact that I know I wouldn’t even have to be pregnant to get that kind of treatment makes me hardly ever ask.

I am closing in on my due date and those cravings of early pregnancy seem like a long time ago now. However, I am sticking to my guns on some other perks of pregnancy, like the housework thing. We just can’t be too careful. I can’t be expected to expose my defenseless baby to the roar of the vacuum, can I?