Preparing for Pregnancy in Everyday Eating

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January 8, 2025

Okay, let's be real: preparing your body for pregnancy is one of those things nobody really talks about because it instantly gets awkward. Honestly, it doesn't have to be! For me, it's not about hyper fixating on charts and temperature-taking, but rather being intentional with what I eat now so my body feels strong, supported, and ready whenever that time comes.

If you've ever wondered, "How do I prepare my body for pregnancy naturally?" then you're at the exact spot I am on my journey.

Hi! I'm Sierrah. My family has been sharing our journey with food and farming through ZOE Farms for the past couple years. Our mission is to heal our relationships with land and animals, and share that healing through to food it produces. I'm here to share my story of healing and preparing my own body... My husband I have been married for over a year now, and we are looking forward to having kids together. I've been researching about the importance of prenatal health, and I hope to help other women find empowerment in living their healthiest and happiest lives.

Here are the everyday habits I've been building around food over the past couple months as I near pregnancy...

Building my meals around balance. I've always been a big meat eater, so eating enough protein has never been an issue. Veggies, however, are a different story. I've been far more intentional with eating a well-rounded diet. Trying to work with seasonal veggies from the farm can be a challenge, but I've supplemented with my own homemade juices to be sure I'm getting the proper micronutrients and antioxidants. This looks different for everyone, but ensuring you're getting enough of what your body needs is going to set you up for success in the future.
Getting excited about cooking. Using the foods that we grow here at the farm is just half of the story. Getting excited to cook good meals is the other half. My husband and I have made it a fun challenge to integrate certain foods like our Ancestral Blend Ground Beef into our meals at least once a week to get the benefits of organ meat. (It seems like a pasta meat sauce is by far the best way to mask any weird flavor). We also love trying a variety of culture's foods with some of our favorite meals being Greek or Asian inspired.
Eating enough. This one is so important. It can be tough for a lot of women because under-eating is so normalized that we barely recognize we're doing it. I never used to eat three full meals (just breakfast and dinner) and now I bring a full lunch to the farm every day. Taking ten minutes to sit, mindfully eat, and slow down while working is also a wonderful reset for any stress held up in my body. I try to keep lunch very low-carb so I don't experience an afternoon crash.

A normal day of eating looks something like this:

Breakfast: Two eggs on sourdough toast with a glass of my homemade greens juice

Lunch: Leftover Ancestral Spaghetti from dinner the night before

Snack: Kimchi (homemade is best using the Napa Cabbage from the farm!)

Dinner: Greek Arayes with a Salad and Roasted Potatoes

I am so happy that so many of our farm supporters are young mothers or women looking to better their health through regeneratively raised food. Women who are supporting their families with the finest food land has to offer, and shaping the next generation. Food is the basis of life, and to create life, we must first eat the food that heals and strengthens us.

A Subject in Regenerative Farming Not Discussed

There are two struggles in regenerative farming. One is visible. The other is hidden. The visible struggle is obvious. Small farms like ours compete against companies with enormous marketing budgets, national distribution, investor backing, and public relations teams. A company like Vital Farms has a market capitalization measured in billions of dollars. They buy placement in grocery stores across the country, dominate advertising channels, and repeat carefully crafted messages nationally until they become accepted as truth. For years, terms like "pasture-raised" have been used because chickens were actually being raised in green, abundant pastures. Corporations like Vital Farms practice something entirely different. These details matter. Definitions matter. Transparency matters. Yet large companies have enormous resources to shape public perception. That is the visible fight. It's the proverbial “David versus Goliath” story everyone recognizes. Vital farms packs 50,000 birds in a barn with some doors open on the sides. They call it "pasture raised". They are trading off of the good will created by farms like us who DO IT FOR REAL. The hidden struggle, however, is far more important. Farming is heavily dependent on debt. Equipment, land, livestock and operation loans. Production seasons are financed and insured. Interest and insurance payments become significant cost centers. These payment schedules create a difficult reality - many farms spend a significant portion of their energy servicing financial obligations. Farming becomes less and less about stewarding land and animals and more about generating enough cash flow to satisfy lenders. This pressure, without doubt, changes behavior. It changes the way decisions are made and what priorities are highest. When debt becomes large enough, nearly everything becomes secondary to the repayment schedule. Erin and I recognized this hard reality early on. We decided that if we were serious about building a truly regenerative farm, it needed to be a financially regenerative farm as well. That meant refusing to finance our operations. No investors. No shareholders. No operating loans. No one sits at a table across from us explaining why we should relax our standards to improve profitability or efficiency. It has taken us three years to finish this structure without debt. We planned to construct the bare necessities first, then we prioritized the biggest needs as money became available. It is now fully functioning with ZERO debt. If we have a slow season, we simply slow down rather than cutting corners to pay loans To be clear - this decision has never been easy. Every year, peak production season is May through October, and we barely scrape by. We’ve nearly lost everything – several times. In many obvious ways, it has made our journey significantly harder. Growth is slower when you don't borrow your way forward. Infrastructure takes longer to build. New projects take patience. Expansion happens only when the resources actually exist. But there is a tradeoff that we found to be worth everything. Freedom. Freedom to tell the truth. Freedom to make decisions that align with our mission rather than someone else's financial model. Freedom to reject shortcuts. Freedom to say no. Investing in soil biology, grazing systems, animal welfare, local processing, and employees in alignment with our mission takes years. We remain free to serve the people who matter most. Our patrons. That is our secret weapon. Not marketing. Not venture capital. Not investor funding. Our patrons. Our relationship with our patrons remains rock solid because they provide the financial freedom for us to pursue our mission without distraction. Every food dollar entrusted to our care directly funds the farm itself. Food money pays to keep our mission going and growing, not servicing debt. Our patrons have become our shareholders. They may not own a piece of the business, but they make the business possible. Their support allows us to remain financially independent. We realized a valuable truth early -- the relationship between our farm and our patrons forms the symbiotic financial backbone of truly regenerative farming. As we invest in better stewardship, our patrons receive better food. As our patrons continued supporting the farm, we can invest in the resources to become better stewards. We strengthen one another. The cycle continues. It’s regenerative finance serving regenerative farming. This relationship has created something highly resilient. A farm that answers to no investors. No shareholders. No bankers. We are free to serve our mission and the One who has called us forward into discovering the riches of a food production design centered on healing rather than exploitation. A special thank you to all of our patrons who make this possible. ❤️🙏 Dustin and Erin

Bigger Than Growth

We could make a living if the farm was a fraction of its current size. We are not chasing growth for growth’s sake. We are not trying to become a national brand. We are not looking for outside investors. We are not building this business so that one day....

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Every characteristic that makes food desirable—flavor, aroma, texture, color, and nutrition—begins with sunlight. Plants are nature’s solar collectors. Through photosynthesis, they convert solar energy into sugars, proteins, fats, antioxidants, and countless other compounds that ultimately become the building blocks of every grazing animal on earth.

Preparing for Pregnancy in Everyday Eating

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