Ode to a Bowl of Mashed Potatoes
This is the best bowl of mashed potatoes I’ve ever had in my life. Smashed with a fork because I don’t own a masher any more, with coconut oil because I try hard not to do dairy any more, it’s nonetheless a bowl of steamy starchy ambrosia goodness. You’d think a raw food advocate would cringe to sing the praises of the lowly boiled and smashed potato, but speaking as someone who, in matters of comfort food, is wholly controlled by her Irish ancestry (I know 101 ways to make a potato sing… no, not like that… sigh…), I can definitively say, this is a damn good bowl of potatoes.
“Why are you getting all emotional and ethnic about a bowlful of starch?” you ask… I’ll tell you. Turns out that NVP, or “morning sickness”, is far more complex than I thought. Check these out:
- http://tinyurl.com/2fj4ohMorning sickness: a mechanism for protecting mother and embryo.
- http://tinyurl.com/yqjb3lReproductive immunosupression and diet. An evolutionary perspective on pregnancy sickness and meat consumption.
- http://tinyurl.com/2adku6Vomiting and nausea in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. (This one’s a hoot; says it’s basically a result of your environment, if you’re getting along with your husband, or if you’re stressed with your children.)
- http://www.as.ua.edu/ant/bindon/ant570/Papers/Edwards.htmAn Adaptationist Approach to Pregnancy Sickness
Pretty much more than you ever wanted to know about cross cultural and adaptational root causes for pregnancy sickness.
- http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/CA/journal/issues/v44n5/035602/035602.htmlOn Morning Sickness and the Neolithic Revolution
Why NVP is at least as much cultural as it is physiological. I’d never thought of it like this.
One article states,
There is a great deal of variation among women with respect to the severity and duration of NVP symptoms. For the majority of pregnant women, nausea is transient in nature and has few long-term consequences for their pregnancy or their life, although it is undoubtedly unpleasant in the short term. For as many as 35% of pregnant women, the NVP symptoms are severe enough to seriously disrupt their lives, causing them to change their usual activities. An average of 2.5% of pregnant women require hospitalization because of hyperemesis gravidarum. Predicting which patients are likely to suffer from NVP is difficult. There are no reliable indicators. Fatigue appears to be associated with nausea during pregnancy. Women who have a history of severe nausea during pregnancy or whose mothers suffered from severe nausea during pregnancy are at greater risk. Multiple gestation and molar pregnancies are also associated with increased nausea. Despite the unpleasant and disruptive nature of NVP symptoms, nausea during pregnancy is considered a normal part of pregnancy. Nausea and vomiting in the first trimester of pregnancy are associated with a decreased risk of miscarriage, preterm delivery, low birth weight, stillbirth, and fetal and perinatal mortality. Women suffering from severe NVP do not appear to have different birth outcomes from those of women who experience mild nausea.
So speaking as a girl who had a pretty devastating miscarriage not that long ago, the fact that I’m sitting here, queasy as all hell, nibbling on this bowl of mashed potatoes and utterly unable to drink my customary morning tea, is A Good Thing.
And yes. I’ll keep y’all posted. In the meantime, send potatoes…
Woohoo - congrats! Long live the potatoes - uhm, their eater+! Keeping fingers and toes crossed…
BTW, I just read something that seems so Kafkaesque someone should blog about it - or not even dare dignify it with any reaction:
“In July 2007, Chinese authorities issued a regulation that requires all reincarnations - including the Dalai Lama - to be approved by the government.”
http://voanews.com/english/About/2007-10-17-voa65.cfm
Did anyone yell WOOOOOOT HOOOOOOT yet? If not, there I go, waking up the kids at this hour!! Heheheh…yay, I am so happy for your nauseatedness, keeping ‘em crossed that you keep on chucking it up!! xoxo Laura
L, congrats!
Hey, at least going for Irish potato ancestry has to be better than my Italian wheat pasta ancestry (or technically, polenta where my family comes from, but Italian customs are all mixed up now)
I haven’t yet looked through all your links, but that first one is really interesting. I never actually had full-on puking morning sickness, but I had heightened aversions and nausea to yucky chemical smells and basically concluded what that study said. It sucked that I couldn’t sleep in our newly-painted and furnished bedroom for months, LOL, but baby let me know he didn’t like it there
I couldn’t send potatoes, and I don’t think I can post a photo here, so I’m hoping this works…
A quiet “squeee!” from me.
sticky, sticky vibes coming at you. I’d send potatoes but don’t have your new address
HappyDance! I am so glad for you. I did chips and sweet tea, the salty-and-sweet thing did it for me…
-A
(from foodlab)
eeek! stickystickysticky. I’m so happy to hear the news! xoxoxo how did I miss this yesterday? *sigh* the Pageflakes RSS is failing me…but who cares, you have morning sickness, and it’s wonderful!!
something inspired me to check out your blog this weekend - congratulations on your wonderful news! sending you oodles of sticky vibes!
i know you have theories about protein… i found eating sufficient protein helped ease morning sickness for me. also getting light exercise. seemed to me a blood sugar kind of issue, but i’m not sure whether other women come to it from other ways! i’ll have to read your links!
Laureen! YIPPEEEEE! All my very most positive vibes are heading straight for your midsection, can you feel them?
& guess what? I’m in my 10th week with #2 myself! And especially in the 2nd month I absolutely could NOT stay off all the things I’d cut out of my diet (esp. simple sugars); they were all my body wanted. Ugh.
Anyway, I am THRILLED for you and have all appendages crossed. Hope to hang out with you SOON–we can sit around being queasy together!
xox,
jessica
Thrilled to hear that exciting and wonderful things are happening –> of course, sending more and *more* vibes for stickiness!!!
Sigh. . . gotta love them nightshades!