Second Bradley Class

Yesterday was our second Bradley class! The topic this time was nutrition. James was nervous about letting it out of the bag that we are vegan, so we agreed not to say anything about it if we could avoid it.

However, when we played a version of the newlywed game where the husbands had to list their wives favorite foods in different categories--including dairy foods, egg foods, protein foods, etc, I decided there wasn't really much getting around it.

"Well, it might be hard for him to do my favorite egg foods," I explained. "We're actually vegan. So we don't eat dairy, or eggs, or meat."

Our Bradley instructor's eyes bulged at this news.

The approach to diet in Bradley classes is based on the Brewer diet. You'll notice that the Brewer Diet includes four dairy choices and two eggs every day, and liver once a week. Additionally, you should aim to get 80-100 grams of protein daily.

Our instructor was nice about it, said that she knew there were lots of substitutes for milk and lots of non-meat protein sources. "But eggs are SO important to your nutrition! I'll have to ask my fellow Bradley instructors what to eat instead . . . but wow, how will you get 80 grams of protein!"

James and I reassured her that we thought we probably got plenty of protein and were generally pretty nutritionally savvy. "We have lots of friends who are very knowledgeable about nutrition," I explained. "So we're pretty confident in our health."

And we are. Rather than feeling nervous or insecure about our diet choices, we more felt sorry for her that she was so concerned about us. On the ride home we reflected that it must be difficult for vegans that don't have the educational and family and friend support that we have. People are so misinformed about nutrition that unless you surround yourself with the right people and information, I think it would be quite easy, as a vegan, to constantly be questioned by others, and therefore, questioning yourself, about whether this is *really* a healthy diet.

"I was much less confident about it before we started dating," James said to me as we discussed.
I snorted. "Yeah, well, your vegan diet at that time consisted of potato chips, chocolate soymilk, and bread and hummus. You shouldn't have felt very confident!"
"Oh right."

I also couldn't help to notice, as we watched a video presentation by Dr. Brewer, that he was significantly overweight. Unfortunately, it makes it hard to take him very seriously.

But, it is hard to deny the research--0 cases of toxemia out of 7000 people who followed the Brewer diet. And they say that they don't know what causes it. Wow. More and more it is obvious to me that health comes down to diet. I can't help feeling sorry for the people I see in the store, overweight, diabetic, wheezing, suffering . . . I wish they could KNOW, deep inside, what I know now about the way to find health.

Anyway, the rest of the class was quite fun--we bonded more with our fellow classmates, talked about breastfeeding, one of my favorite subjects, practiced the pregnancy exercises we learned last time, and practiced relaxing. Hopefully by the time this baby decides to be born, James and I will feel quite ready to bring him into this world. :-)