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Expert Q&A

	By Allison Gamble Nutritionist/Diet Technician Highland Park Hospital, Illinois

I drink a food supplement for breakfast or when I am on the go and don't have time to cook. May I continue when I am pregnant? - Jodi

I think you are better off relying on naturally nutritious foods, and I would suggest you try to give yourself more time to eat breakfast. You can prepare a quick, easy, nutritious meal in place of the supplement -- quickly throw together a bowl of cereal with fruit on top and maybe scramble an egg for protein. You should stick to cereals like Shredded Wheat, Raisin Bran, Special K and others with substance! The high sugar cereals, of course, taste good, but don't offer much nutritionally (and personally, I never feel satisfied after I eat them). If you are not a cereal person, go for a bagel and yogurt. There's also always toast or an English muffin. White bread is great, but choose a hearty seven-grain bread instead.

Try not to substitute meals with the food supplement. Use it as a mid-afternoon boost if you want. There are other good snack foods to eat, and I would choose those before I drank a meal supplement. If you take time to eat a simple breakfast, you will be consuming more vitamins and minerals which is the real key during pregnancy. Maybe leave the supplement as more of a mid-day snack rather than a meal replacement. Breakfast is truly the most important meal of the day. If you don't eat enough your attention span goes down, you become cranky, and will spend the rest of the day fighting for energy.

As a side note to those of you who don't eat breakfast because you get a stomachache: try to get up earlier, and eat more slowly. Your body basically shuts down at night, and when you eat in the morning you get your digestive tract moving again, as well as everything sitting in there from the night before. So give yourself the time to eat and go to the bathroom. Not a lovely topic, but if you are one of those people sitting in the bathroom when you should be on the way to work, then you know what I am talking about."

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