Food cravings.

[AshleyElaine87]

I am about 10 weeks pregnant and have been craving salads! I can't digest lettuce, so having this craving is hard not to give in. Is anyone else having cravings of foods that you're not able to eat because of your Crohn's? I'd love to hear from other people and what they're doing.

 

[muppet]

How about bean sprouts? Alfalfa? Probably not, but thought I'd toss it out there...

I've thankfully never had an issue with lettuce. It seems odd to me that it's on some people's list.

 

[AshleyElaine87]

Yeah; that's one of the only things actually that I try to stay away from. I haven't found any other foods that upset me like lettuce. I am also a naturally picky eater, so I don't eat bean sprout or alfalfa, lol.

 

[kateel]

I am not pregnant, but I had the same problems with lettuce this past spring and of course salads were the only thing I wanted since I couldn't have it. Sometimes I gave in and had it, but I definitely paid for it later. Best of luck to you...it must be really hard being pregnant and not being able to give in to your cravings at all.

 

[muppet]

One solution might be to analyze what is in lettuce nutritionally (if it's iceberg, not much) and try to duplicate those elements with other foods to the best of your ability. Often cravings are said to be signals from your body that you're lacking some particular macro- or micro-nutrient. I don't have the citations to back that up but I've heard it more than a few times.

 

[Mapper]

Can you tolerate other greens, like spinach? That might be a good substitute. In my experience, I have found that I can't eat salads in restaurants or in those ready made packs, I found out that they spray the salad greens with some kind of sulphate-base preservative that sets me off, but if I buy a whole organic lettuce and wash it carefully and have a small portion, I do ok. I know what it's like to have cravings. My last pregnancy I was also on prednisone the whole time, so my cravings were off the chain. I was eating pickled hot peppers out of the jar, and the oddest thing I craved was kaolin clay. I'm sure I was low on some type of mineral, I wanted to eat that clay sooo badly.

 

[JanaSasse]

I have found that to eat Salads,,, which I use to have troubles with including Sauerkraut(my favorite) I had to shave lettuce, pickles,olives and any other fuffage I wanted in a salad really fine,,, after I discovered that,,, I now have salads on a regular basis!!! Good Luck to you and your new one on the way!

 

[Jenamonkey]

On a random note, my OB said to avoid sprouts due to the risk of listeria. It's pretty low (if you aren't worried about lunch meat, I wouldn't worry about sprouts) but I've decided to just avoid them. Oh and I am craving apples BIG TIME but can't eat too many in a day or I'll have fiber overload. I'm making due w/ one a day and lots of grapes!

 

[AshleyElaine87]

Huh; I hadn't heard about sprouts! Good to know! Thanks!