pregnant and craving eggs

[Thyme]

Hi

I'm 18 weeks pregnant (yay ) but I've been craving eggs for weeks now. I've not given in and I'm trying everything to ignore it, but it's starting to drive me mad-I'm even dreaming about eggs, does anyone have any suggestions??

I've heard that cravings in pregnancy are often due to things that are needed-is there any nutrients in eggs that I might be low in that I could get from other foods that might satify the cravings?

I'm taking the veg1 b6 and b12 vitamins, which I know are in eggs. I'm only just getting over bad pregnancy sickness, still sick every so often, so my diet has been quite rubbish-I've been living off weetabix, fruit and noodles which is all I could keep down. Worryingly I also can't stomach the darker greens like kale, beans or rice, although I've been able to eat raw peas and raw podded broad beans. Mostly I can't manage cooked food.

Any suggestions, really can't end up eating egg but it's driving me mad!!!

[twinkle]

Congratulations on your pregnancy I'm pregnant too (25 weeks today) and I had a couple of very slight yearnings for scrambled eggs. I figure I'm really after fat and protein so I've been eating quite a few nuts and beans and scrambled tofu (and crisps and cake ), things like that. I also sympathise with going off greens - I was eating them but not really enjoying them. Fortunately I seem to have got over that a bit.

Could you tolerate a tofu scramble on toast? Or you could make a tofu-rich dressing to go on some peas or potatoes for a potato salad if you don't want hot food?

(Just to add that I don't think cravings are necessarily to do with shortages we're experiencing in nutrients, it's just that our senses of taste are all up the spout!)

[Allysia]

(Just to add that I don't think cravings are necessarily to do with shortages we're experiencing in nutrients, it's just that our senses of taste are all up the spout!)

Oh man I hear ya! A long time ago when I was pregnant, I could not even handle the THOUGHT of brown rice. And the smell of cooking vegetables just turned me right off, so I ate a lot of raw ones too. And a lot of crackers.

Definitely recommend scrambled tofu. So good.

[RubyDuby]

Maybe you could get your hands on some black salt? We like to add that to our scrambles for the sulfur taste and smell.

[pat sommer]

yup, I second that: sulfur is the craving. Hing is stinky-sulfury too.

I had no cravings while pregnant but darn if red wine and dark ales didn't taste sooo good.

[Firestorm]

You could always try nutritional yeast in scrambled tofu this is my favourite recipe but I add nutritional yeast and it makes it taste more like egg.

[cookey]

Yup - I craved scrambled eggs when I was pregnant too (some time ago now!). I assumed I needed more protein and ate extra tofu.

[refinnej]

You could always try nutritional yeast in scrambled tofu this is my favourite recipe but I add nutritional yeast and it makes it taste more like egg.

This was my suggestion as well. I hated scrambled eggs as an omnivore, but my (non-pregant ) husband loves tofu scramble with nooch to satisfy his eggy cravings.

I'm 18 weeks too, btw! (EDD 12th of November). Nice to see some other pg vegans here in the UK. Starting to feel like I'm like only one sometimes.

[Thyme]

Hi,

Thanks for everyone's suggestions. I tried scrambled tofu over the weekend and it was really nice and did seem to help a bit. I've not heard of black salt, and I've never seen nutritional yeast in the shops although I've read about it, where do you get these ingredients?

refinnej-wow, my EDD is 9th november! That's great, I was feeling like the only one! In real life I don't know anyone or is either vegan or pregnant so there's certainly no-one who's both, so it's nice to know there's other people out there!

[RubyDuby]

We found black salt (Kala Namak) in an Indian market, but you could order it online along with nutritional yeast if you can't find that in a health food store.

[khadagan]

I'm currently pregnant as well (28 weeks) and I've had coffee cravings in the second trimester which I had for weeks. This is really weird for me because I never drink coffee, nor do I like it. I ended up buying coffee flavoured chocolate and this helped somewhat. The craving just passed for me and I'm back to my normal dislike of coffee. They do sometimes say that cravings could be caused by deficiencies, maybe they're right, but I'm not so sure. I second what it being said here as well that you might just need some protein, or maybe just more food. I've gone through a few stages where I'm just massively hungry and whatever I eat it's not nearly enough and I feel I can just carry on and on.

I personally dislike eggs very much, so I can also second that black salt (bought from an Indian supermarket in the UK at the time) very much smells like (rotten) eggs and taste like eggs, you hardly need to add anything, it has a very strong flavour to it. In the tofu scramble I like to add about a table spoon of soya sauce. I feel that really adds to the flavour, as well as about a tspn of turmeric. I like to add spring onions as well or just baked sliced onion, I think that's about it. I'll bet the nutritional yeast in there that was mentioned above would be really tasty in there as well.

[RubyDuby]

It doesn't smell rotten. You do only need a pinch, though.

[khadagan]

Hehe, well I think it smells rotten, but I also really really dislike the smell and flavour of eggs, makes me feel instantly ill, I've never been able to enjoy them. I believe you if you say it's a normal smell though, I'll leave that judgement up to the experts