oooops - just ate a bacon sandwich after 21 years of being a veggie

[Bicnod]

Been feeling really nauseous (am 9 weeks pg) for weeks and don't fancy eating ANYTHING that I normally like. I have chocolate biscuits, cereal, pasta, cheese and yoghurt in the house and none of it appeals - thinking about any of it makes me feel queasy and vegetables and fruit (which I usually eat loads of) are a total no no.

DH left 3 rashers of bacon in the fridge from his Sunday breakfast. I've been craving bacon and chicken for the last couple of weeks but have been ignoring it. Just cooked the bacon to see what I would feel like when I smelt it then wolfed it down in a sandwich. I feel not sick for the first time in weeks.

I'm a vegetarian. That's been part of my identity for 21 years. I didn't crave meat in my last pregnancy.

ARGH! I don't even feel guilty

Don't know why I'm posting - I suppose I'm hoping someone will tell me off because I feel like I deserve it.

buttonmoon glad I can rely on your discretion

I think the problem is that my current diet isn't balanced as all the healthy things I usually eat to have a balanced veggie diet have been turning my stomach so I've been eating very little really.

Hmmmm.

Veggie sausages with veggie gravy have not made me feel sick so maybe need to invest in a load of meat-substitute things (I don't usually eat them - but then I don't usually eat bacon) to munch on over the next few weeks until MS dies down a bit. Just can't bring myself to eat lentils/beans etc at the moment.

Ooooo - veggie sausages with roast potatoes and gravy. That's what I'm going to have for tea tonight.

But people who eat meat find it hard to accommodate veggies anyway (my BiL is veggie) as most of their entertaining repertoire will feature meat heavily so it's a little bit unreasonable to expect people to work around your changing 'needs'.

And I'm not saying that as a wholly selfish person, I regularly accomodate various likes and dislikes, cans and can'ts, allergies etc. It's just that they stay the same.

Sorry - that sentence But people who eat meat find it hard to accommodate veggies anyway is a sweeping generalisation based on my experience. I'm sure that others would agree though.

buttonmoon I think you're agreeing with me - I agree that it wouldn't be reasonable to expect other people to accommodate my changing needs.

I do want to stick to being veggie (hurrah! this thread has succeeded in making me feel guilty ) and in order to do that I'll buy a load of meat substitute sausages etc and eat those until the cravings pass.

And no-one in RL will ever know about the bacon sandwich.

How do I explain the absence of his 3 rashers of bacon to DH?!

But if it's so hard for a meat-eater to cater for veggies, surely they'd be happier at it being a little easier for nine months? It's not like you'd be changing to another restricted diet.

But whereas a vegetarian diet can be completely adequate for pregnancy nutrition, it doesn't mean that it always will.

For those of us on the thread brave enough to have confessed to their 'lapses' - who I'd assume to be living in Western countries, educated in terms of healthy eating and affluent enough to be able to afford a varied diet - being veggie whilst pregnant is probably OK. But for many women across the world and some in Britain, pregnancy nutrition and basic vitamin/mineral deficiency is a real problem, even if only as a result of poor health education. And if a pregnant woman is facing a choice between living on chips and toast and between fish and chips with the odd bacon sandwich, I think I'd still want at least to advocate the latter....

bicnod it's called willpower

bicnod I am agreeing with you! I was engaging in a debate with Rhian82.

Rhian - it's the chopping and changing. People like to know where they are!

I agree with you Breastmilk, pregnancy nutrition can be a real problem for some and education is essential. But then, surely nobody should ever go on a restricted diet without first ensuring that they can meet all their dietary needs? Nobody should be living on chips and toast, pregnant or otherwise!

Oh, and bicnod - just tell him that whilst pulling something else out of the fridge the packet fell on the floor and as he obviously hadn't wrapped it correctly it fell out of the packet. Obviously, being a veggie you couldn't face the thought of washing it and saving it so you just popped it in the bin. And make sure you open the window to dispel the smell

Oh I could not even smell beans, lentils or any of the things that I used to eat, I survived on lots and lots of milk, yogurt, cottage cheese and eggs, if you eat them they are very good sources of all the things missing in lettuce...
I think you can get most of what you need from just enough milk a day, and I found that a very good solution, I normally drink it just in coffee/tea, but during that first trimester I was drinking pint after pint of the stuff.

Of course not. But nobody should be so poor as to need to choose between feeding themselves or putting money on the electric. And nobody should be so undereducated as to have to buy chips from the chippy rather than to know how to put a potato in the oven to make jackets and using the change from what would otherwise have been spent at the chippy to buy cheese and tomatoes. Unfortunately, though, we live in a very unequal society.

In a non-UK context, I once worked in an African country where one of the tribes forbade women from eating anything other than maize, cassava and beans, even when pregnant. Seeing the men happily chewing on their chicken legs whilst their wives were breathless and fainting from anaemia made me really question any proselytising my vegetarian principles.

I am pleased with the outcome of your thread

Do what Buttonmoon said re DH & the missing bacon.

I agree with you wholeheartedly Breastmilk. But I thought this was more of a lifestyle choice thread rather than a poverty-induced non-choice thread.

There's a lot of ignorance worldwide over dietary issues and I don't for one minute think we have all the answers in this country.

Right. Off to have my ugali and soopu.

buttonmoon aha - I thought we were just violently agreeing with each other

breastmilk good points indeed. I do have a choice though and reckon I should do everything I can to stick to being veggie - this thread has made me realise that I'm clearly lacking something nutritionally so need to deal with that. I'm lucky that I'm able to do that.

With regards DH - I fessed up. I'm crap at lying and he can read me like a book so I just told him and he was actually very lovely about it and not at all gloaty. He even said that he wouldn't tell anyone after some threats and begging persuasion.

ChippingIn - glad you're happy about it - it would probably make you even happier to know that the smell of the bacon in the house when I came back from picking DS up from the childminder (I was working from home today - hence the ridiculous amount of MN-ing ) actually made me heave.

I lied about the ugali. I just had a bacon sandwich. It's all your fault.

Haha

Bicnod - don't worry. The balance of the universe has been restored; I'm a confirmed carnivore but at 10 weeks I have completely and utterly gone off meat. You can eat my share.

Armi that's excellent news - at least I don't have to feel bad about the rogue bacon sarnie now

How weird that you've gone off meat - I wonder what that's all about?

I don't know. It's a texture thing - chicken breasts are the worst, all dense and sort of fibrous.

I feel sick just thinking about it!

I hadn't eaten much meat (and certainly no red meat) in years before I was pregnant.

After about 15 weeks, I couldn't go about 3 hours during the day without having some kind of pork or beef product....right down from McDonald's cheeseburgers (I'd eat 3 in one go) right up to steak...I think my body was trying to tell me something

Bicnod - would it be really terrible to be a tiny bit pleased you felt at the smell later on - just a tiny bit you understand ....

I'm glad DH wasn't too gloaty and has promised to keep quiet :) However, I suspect it wont be the last you hear of it!

I'm veggie for about 16 years and pregnant with DC3, I never craved meat at all and never felt anything different about meat, I certaintly wasn't a nutritional saint while pregnant and when the ms was very bad if all I could eat was potato waffles then that was what I ate, I made up for it another time and when it got very bad I took vitamins.
I would never judge anyone for switching that's their own choice as it was mine when I became veggie but what I see if a lot of guilt, dont feel guilty, you are your own person and completely entitled to eat whatever you want!

Well it was officially a blip. I've been drinking lots of milk and eating lots of veggie sausages and the meat cravings seem to have subsided. Phew!

ChippingIn I was quite relieved to feel at the smell so yes, you can get away with that...

That's my girl