Fertility Diet part 4: Foods to Avoid
In the fertility diet series, we’ve been talking a bit about what essential nutrients we need and where to find them, so let’s talk a bit about the foods that may decrease our fertility as well.
Avoid Sugar
One of the “anti-nutrients” all health care providers, holistic health coaches, and nutritionists can agree on is sugar. This particular food can cause widespread damage throughout your body! One of the many ways it does is by causing your insulin levels to rise. When you eat a sugary food, your body needs to release insulin in order bring down the levels of sugars in your blood. The thing you need to realize is that insulin is a hormone, and when constantly flooding your system, rising and falling, it brings along all of the other hormones as well. Your endocrine system is connected so when just one hormone can not be regulated it can no longer perform and regulate the others – including your sex hormones (testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, etc.)
It’s also hard for our body to digest and uses the nutrients our body has stored in order to get rid of it, as well as being hard on the liver (which is our bodies natural detoxifier).
Avoid Caffeine
Studies have shown that women who drink one to one and a half cups of coffee each day had up to a 50% reduction in fertility. Three cups a day has been linked to early miscarriage (new evidence shows 200 milligrams as the limit). The liver has to convert caffeine so that it may be passed in your urine. Your liver also has to deal with excreting your hormones. If the liver is overworked in one area, it can’t function properly. Caffeine increases the excretion of calcium which is important in absorbing vitamin D as well as providing a little baby with strong bones.
Avoid Alcohol
In women, alcohol may actually prevent the production of progesterone, which is vital to ensuring a pregnancy is carried to term. In men, it reduces the levels of sperm-making hormones which can actually wipe out a sperm count for three months after a heavy drinking session. (It takes 3 months for new sperm to mature)
Avoid Low-fat Milk
The problem is, it seems our bodies need fat in order to maintain our cellular structure. And removing the fat from milk has actually been shown to cause an imbalance of hormones throughout the body, causing a failure to ovulate or produce a healthy egg. In a recent study, scientists found that women who ate full fat dairy were found to have a 27% lower risk of infertility. Women who ate low fat milk products twice a day were found to be twice as likely to not ovulate. This study shows that eating healthy fats, as are in milk, is helpful in reproduction.
Avoid Soy
Soy contains something called phyto-estrogens and while some health practitioners (even holistic ones) think that eating soy can be healthy, I have a problem with something that includes these “plant derived estrogens’. While in some cases a diet that includes a small amount of soy may not be bothersome, many men and women find they have issues with this particular food.
It’s also been alleged that soy is high in something called phytic acid which prevents nutrients from being absorbed as well as robbing bodily stores of nutrients trying to digest it. (it may bind to nutrients like zinc and carry it out of the body)
Lastly, a very large portion of the soy grown in the U.S. is genetically modified. Meaning that scientists have changed the DNA of the plant by ‘merging’ it with cells from other organisms. A few studies have been done on animals that show GMO foods may decrease fertility.
Avoid Processed Foods
This category of foods takes care of a lot of the harmful substances we place into our bodies like MSG, Trans Fats, high fructose corn syrup, and soda. there really is nothing more sabotaging to healthy eating than processed foods! Not only do they place many different toxins into our bodies (thereby making the liver less efficient at cleaning them out) we again use a lot of nutrient stores digesting them!
While we may never have a “perfect” diet, we can make a conscience effort to cut back our consumption of certain foods so that our bodies can run they way they do best. It’s all about eating for nourishment!
What foods do you stay away from when trying to conceive?
Like what you've read? Use the social media sharing buttons just above to share with others. And thanks so much for your support!! Sharing with social media helps me get the word out about Real Food and Fertility. :-)
All images and content are protected under US copyright laws, please do not copy and paste.
About donielle
Donielle is an amateur herbalist and natural momma to two littles (with another babe in heaven) after struggling with infertility. She has a passion for nourishing nutrition, natural living, and spreading the word on how food truly affects our health. Her blog Naturally Knocked Up focuses on fertility and reproductive health and her book on natural fertility will be available in June 2012. She also runs a local blog (Grand Rapids Natural Living) and is active the local community in order to provide the area with resources and information for natural families.
Click here to learn about subscription options
I *try* to avoid any pasteurized dairy (not always possible; sometimes I have to rely on local, low-temp pasteurized, grass-fed dairy, but I do avoid heavily processed). I’ve also found that sugar (even natural) gives me a headache so I try to avoid that, obviously. White flour, except in a pinch (family can only handle white flour or sprouted grains, so if we are out…white it is). Pretty much anything processed.
[Reply]
AVOID GMOs
The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM), for example, issued a policy statement that all physicians should prescribe non-GMO diets for everyone, citing a long list of disorders found in animal feeding studies.
A team of scientists re-evaluated data from three rat feeding studies by Monsanto, and published evidence showing “signs of toxicity” in major organs.
Two institutes in Russia found that by the third generation of feeding hamsters GM soy, most lost the ability to have babies. And the infant mortality was 4 or 5-fold higher than controls.
Scientists from the USDA, Purdue, and elsewhere, are now publishing reports about how the overuse of Roundup herbicide, used with GM Roundup Ready crops, may be depriving our food of key minerals.
[Reply]
Great post, will be using it an a later Sunday surf (somewhere towards the end of june)
[Reply]
I have an extreme love for coffee. I have been drinking decaf coffee two months before my husband and I decided that we wanted to try for a baby. Is drinking decaf coffee daily safe for fertility and pregnant women?
BTW, I am so happy to have found your website. Its like an answer to my prayers
[Reply]
donielle Reply:
February 4th, 2011 at 9:38 pm
@Jessica, Glad you found me! You know – decaf is a bit better as it doesn’t cause all of the same issues. I know there are a couple of different ways to process decaf coffee and one is better than the other. A hydro process comes to mind as being a healthier option, so maybe at least look for that. Personally though I try and cut back on drinks like coffee that may contribute to an acidic environment in the body. If fertility becomes and issue, I’d cut it out. Or become a weekend drinker or something.
[Reply]
Rika Reply:
December 2nd, 2011 at 12:15 pm
@donielle, Look into Cafix for a coffee trade…its a bit like coffee, but no caffeine! its doing the trick for me now…=)
[Reply]
Oh no! I am looking at this list and I realize I have been eating a lot of most of these things. I didn’t even realize these things could affect fertility. Starting today I am cutting these out! I have been having problems with my cycle and getting pregnant for nearly a year now and I think these may be partly to blame. I was referred to your blog by a friend today and I really look forward to reading more!
[Reply]
Hi! I love your blog! Thank you so much for taking the time to share all of this great information. About the soy, though, h
[Reply]
donielle Reply:
June 20th, 2011 at 3:04 pm
@Amy, Amy – looks like only half your comment came through. What did you want to ask about soy?
[Reply]
Wow, I had no idea that 1½ cups of coffee daily can reduce fertility by 50%! I’m finally convinced to forgo the habit. I cut down to one cup (black) a day, but even that measly cup just isn’t worth it; the cons of drinking coffee definitely outweigh the pros. I already try to avoid the other things on this list as much as possible, and the fact that they mess with fertility is a reason to fight even harder to resist them lol
[Reply]
I like that you pointed information out about Soy. I have Hypothyroidism and soy interferes with the absorbtion of my medication from the research that i’ve done. funny though that my doctor never told me this until after I pointed out I had found it. I just came upon your site today. I have been suffering from heavy menstrual periods lasting weeks on end, spotting between cycles, blood clots, you name it i had it happen. I possibly had a miscarriage but because my bleeding was so abnormal the doctors couldn’t confirm or deny it had happened but I know in my heart that it was. It has been 1 1/2 now that i have been trying to overcome this issue. birth control didn’t work on its own but adding Metformine seemed to help. I don’t like using drugs for anything and I’d like to lose some weight, be healthier and not have to take these medicines. I am not diabetic but i have a history of ovarian cysts and my doctor thought metformine would help with that issue, which it seems to have and helped with my bleeding. but it seems to me that the issue may just be a blood sugar level that is not stable because of my diet. we want to conceive so I’ve stopped my birth control I am going to start changing my diet after reading this and after talking with some of my friends who have tried the fertility diet. Thank you for your series on the fertility diet. what is amazing is that several of the foods were listed over and over again and they are easy to ad to my diet. Thank you again and please everyone keep me in your thoughts and prayers:)
[Reply]
Thanks so much for putting up all your research on this blog. I am just browsing through for the first time and writing lots of info down!!
[Reply]
Great site! I only wish I could get my husband to eat healthier. I try but he is so limited in what he will eat for veggies and whole foods. He eats LOTS of sugars and caffeine which I know affect his fertility as well. But at least I can do this for myself and for the health of our future child! Thank you for all of the research and effort to get these wonderful pages out there! It’s greatly appreciated!
[Reply]
donielle Reply:
October 25th, 2011 at 3:43 pm
@Jessiejess, Sometimes you gotta get sneaky with those husbands! Smoothies are a great way to sneak in greens, raw (pastured) egg yolks, coconut oil, vitamins, etc. Just don’t let him see you make it!
[Reply]