Real Food for Pregnancy: The Science and Wisdom of Optimal Prenatal Nutrition

This book tells you exactly what matters when it comes to eating (and living) during pregnancy. It’s science-backed but super easy to read, and Lily does a great job explaining why so much of the mainstream advice is outdated or just plain wrong. It covers supplements, exercise, stress, labs, postpartum—you name it. But even if you don’t follow every single recommendation, there’s so much here you can apply right away. I wish every woman had this book.

As a first time mom, I bought 4 pregnancy books and out of all of them, this one had my mind engaged and taught a lot. The rest were cute, but this could be retitled pregnancy bible in my opinion. Just sad I found out about it in my third trimester. Appreciated the recipe / meal ideas section & have gained a new love for raspberries.

As someone who isn’t super informed on nutrition and why our bodies need what they need, this book was a lot of great information. I knew a chunk of it, but most of it was very informative since it focuses specifically on what you need during your pregnancy and specifically points out misconceptions. I don’t understand why some reviews said that the author was focusing on expensive organic food, or that they suggested it was written in a condescending tone. The book reads like you’re talking to a friend, it blatantly says that anything closer to naturally made is better for you but life isn’t a perfect world so do what you can, and it backed everything up with scientific research and studies. It was clear, it was nicely organized, and it wasn’t scary to read - people saying it is scary to read are just scared because the author pointed out the realities, which is that certain developmental issues or health concerns occur when too much or too little of a nutrient is present during pregnancy. Don’t blame the messenger for informing you instead of refraining from mentioning it. I like the book so far. It’s very informative. It’s like the top rated recommended book for pregnancy nutrition. Definitely worth the read.

I wanted to wait until I read the whole book but I just couldn’t! I’m halfway through in just a couple of days and have found “Real food for pregnancy” so easy to read and brimming with useful, practical information. I love how Lily gives cited sources in her recommendations and compares it to what’s “generally accepted advice” and how the general guidelines for pregnant women are typically not well founded. I also love that it not only covers nutrition from food, but has a lot of well researched information on prenatal vitamins, supplements, exercise, the list goes on! Although I genuinely try to eat “healthy” I’m not going to wait until I’m pregnant to make some changes as suggested in this book. For example, I use Sweet N Low in my morning coffee. Did I know fake sugar provides no useful nutrition, yes. Did I know it can have a negative effect on the bacteria in my gut and “may impact a child’s propensity for obesity later in life” ?! Sadly, I didn’t. So many small changes can be made given the education found in this book. You will not regret buying this book. Do not wait until you are pregnant. Educate yourself now.

I read this book during my first pregnancy, and just started reading it again for my second. It's the most thorough guide to everything a woman needs to know to eat/not eat during pregnancy. Lily does such a great job explaining things for the novice (me) and helps debunk common (or conventional) thinking about diets. I feel better physically when I apply what I've learned from her guide. Also, the recipes are great.

I was looking for any ways to optimize my health while we're in the TTC stage since there is such a lack of resources for women about their health and the resources we can find tend to be contradicting and misleading.I'm a few days in to reading and re-reading this, but so far I'm pretty satisfied.Some pros I would note so far:1. Unlike most books, the way everything was organized was perfect for binge-reading as well as wanting to read about a specific section very easily, which is especially helpful since I have ADHD.2. This seems to be a very well researched and fact-based book - however, I'm not a nutritional expert and I'm not a mother so I can't really fact check any of this. I plan on writing down key takeaways from this book and checking with my doctor to make sure these recommendations would benefit me for my reproductive health as well as some of my other conditions (such as the author's recommendations for high blood pressure).3. The book not only consists of nutritional information, but information on exercise, stress management, etc.The Cons:1. This tends to follow the pattern of every nutritional advice we receive in the sense that everything isn't really clear. For example, the author recommends dairy products for a variety of health reasons such as protein content, but discourages them at the same time. The author recommends eating carbs because it's the body's preferred energy source, but also discourages carbs and says higher fat intake is the way to go and jumps back and forth about carbs throughout the whole book. The author recommended to eat lots of vegetables and berries but smoothies are not recommended (which I make smoothies primarily consisting of berries so I don't understand what the disconnect is). I was hoping to find something that would avoid the back and forth confusion.2. Not really realistic in terms of time, budget, or skillset of the average first-time mother. I'm 23 years old and I have a full-time salaried job that pays decent, but the meals and meal plans that are recommended are definitely for a stay-at-home mother rich mother in my personal opinion. There's multiple course meals recommended for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks that are not just time consuming, but also pretty expensive. The water filter to remove fluoride that the author recommends is $400 and the prenatal vitamins are around $60 a month and always sold out (and you can't find them in typical stores). While I am prepared to do anything for my child, I would rather put as much money aside for them as I can for necessities when they're born and this book has no recommendations for how to be healthy while also being budget-conscious. I know the author can't help the price tag of the things she recommends, but maybe offering budget friendly alternatives would've been nice so we're not feeling like we're neglecting our children and grandchildren if we don't have it in the budget to drop a ton of money on all organic food, supplements, and equipment - we're all just doing the best we can. Also, a lot of the recommended sources of nutrition is seafood such as swordfish, etc. and the author does not recommend taking a supplement to account for the lack of nutrients if we don't have the taste, time, or money to eat specific things that are recommended.3. I would've liked to see more recipes or sample meal plan options, waking up before work everyday and making spinach quiche and beans for lunch just isn't possible, so I would have liked more recommended meal plans so I can mix and match on my own what works for my time and budget.Overall, rating four stars because the author really took the time to do the research and take many things into consideration, and I really liked how the author was providing a lot of information but not too much information that would cause you to get bored or overwhelmed. I was just expecting something a little different in terms of "real food" in hopes of more black and white instruction and accounting for "real" lifestyles.

Informative and well-researched book. I wish I had started reading sooner in my pregnancy, but the information will certainly benefit me and my baby through breastfeeding and beyond!

I liked reading this and I've already made several of the recipes in the back! They are yummy and easy. Inspired me to keep eating more veggies and gave a lot of helpful data.