Since I got pregnant, I’ve had cravings, of course. They’ve run the gamut from Mexican food (Mr. Owl has come to accept that at least once a week, he will be eating tacos for dinner), to (American) Chinese food (as a native of the Ozarks, I’m obsessed with Springfield chicken; I had no idea that any other sort of cashew chicken existed until I ordered it at a Chinese restaurant in Kansas and was horrified to find that the standard for cashew chicken is not the same outside of southern Missouri), to Japanese food (in the first trimester, Mr. Owl became accustomed to calling me on his way home from work every night to ask, “Honey, do you want me to bring you some miso soup?”).

Ironically enough, the one type of food that I consistently could not stomach in the first trimester was Arabic food. If I caught a whiff of my mother-in-law’s cooking, I was smacked by a wave of nausea. This broke my heart, because pre-pregnancy, I could gobble Arabic food all day long (especially kabsa, a meat-and-rice dish that can be prepared about a thousand different ways and is practically the official dish of Saudi Arabia).

Thankfully, in my second and third trimester, I’ve been able to return to my kabsa-scarfing ways. It’s been a relief for both me and my mother-in-law, who really wanted to feed that growing (first) grandbaby of hers. But even though I had to go on a kabsa hiatus for about three months, she has still been heavily involved in my pregnancy diet. And since she successfully birthed three children (although her second two children were in the normal weight range, her first, Mr. Owl, weighed nearly 12 pounds. That’s right, twelve pounds. Not gonna lie, I’m a little nervous), I’m taking her pregnancy diet advice right along with my own mom’s. Here are three of the main foods she’s got me hooked on.

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1. Watermelon.


Okay, so I’ve always loved watermelon. But the first time I ate it while pregnant, at around eight weeks, it was a disaster. Let’s just say that I’ve only thrown up once so far in this pregnancy, and it was because of watermelon. (Overshare: that was the only time I’d ever seen bright pink puke. It reminded me of Hello Kitty on a bender.) And until about a month ago, I couldn’t eat it (or drink watermelon juice) without feeling nauseous for about an hour afterward. Despite this, I’ve been craving watermelon relentlessly throughout my pregnancy, and according to my Saudi mother-in-law, it’s really good for me and for baby. Although a few American ladies have told me that watermelon is bad for pregnant women (apparently it’s supposed to encourage water retention), my mother-in-law seems to be on the right track here. She always makes sure to have bateekh (“watermelon” in Arabic) in the refrigerator for me. I’m grateful that watermelon-induced nausea now seems to have passed, and now I’m curious to see if Baby Owl will like watermelon once she’s old enough to try it, since so many times she made me crave it and then made me sick when I ate it!

2. Ginger.

Everyone always recommends ginger for nausea. Well, I’m here to tell you, the stuff really is miraculous. During the perpetual nausea of my first trimester, people were always telling me to drink ginger ale (I spent most of those first three months dutifully nursing a can of Canada Dry) and ginger candies. But let’s face it; there’s not a whole lot of ginger in a can of ginger ale, or in a piece of ginger candy. Both of those things were helpful (although they didn’t cure the nausea, they made sure everything in my stomach stayed down), but nothing worked like my mother-in-law’s ginger soup.

Yes, ginger soup.

When Mr. Owl mentioned to his mom that I was feeling nauseous most of the time, she sprang into action. Within a day, I was sitting in front of a bowl of steaming yellow soup. This stuff was the only thing that made me feel normal. And by normal, I mean no nausea. At all.

It. Was. Amazing.

I can’t give you an exact recipe, but it’s really easy. You can fiddle with the ingredients to suit your own tastes. You just need three cups of water or so, a couple chicken stock cubes (although you can use veggie stock if you are vegetarian or vegan), a small cinnamon stick, a bit of cumin, a small piece of chopped fresh ginger (when I first learned how to make this soup, I asked my mother-in-law how big a piece of ginger was necessary, and she said, “Oh…like this, maybe,” and indicated her pointer finger), and a small handful of rice. Bring the water to a boil, add the rest of the ingredients, and cook for a half hour or so over medium heat. Voila, ginger soup. If you’re a morning sick momma-to-be, it will change your life.

3. Dates.

Dates are ubiquitous in the Middle East, and to be honest, I knew very little about them until I met my husband. I actually don’t even recall ever eating a single date before I met him. And once I got clued into the deliciousness of dates, the only variety of date I’ve ever found in the States is Medjools grown in California (but don’t get me wrong–those are delicious. If you get a chance to try other varieties, you definitely should, but those Medjools are really all you need). But dates are everywhere in Saudi Arabia, and there are endless varieties of them, in endless incarnations—fresh, dried, ripe, unripe, sweetened, unsweetened. They’re a huge part of Islamic tradition; during Ramadan, many Muslims break the day’s fasting with dates and water or milk.

Dates are especially recommended for pregnant and breastfeeding women in Islamic countries, especially since the Qur’an (Islam’s holy book) mentions that God instructed Mary to eat dates while she was in labor with Jesus (whom Muslims regard as an important prophet, along with Abraham, Noah, Moses, etc.). And as it turns out, there is research to the effect that eating dates in the last four weeks of pregnancy significantly reduces the need for labor induction and augmentation. Since those are both things I’m hoping to avoid, in addition to the fact that I love dates (especially fresh ones!) and can eat ‘em all day anyway, I’ve been taking my mother-in-law up on her offer every time she gives me dates. Mr. Owl always makes sure we have a box in the house, as well.

Oh, and for breastfeeding moms, it’s commonly said here that dates help increase milk supply. I don’t know of any hard research to back that up, but it certainly won’t hurt.

So those are just three of the pregnancy superfoods I’ve been relying on for the past eight months or so. What were yours when you were pregnant? Or what are yours now?