Fertility Diet – Foods that increase fertility

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Diets for health are plentiful. Can a fertility diet help boost your fertility potential? Let’s fill in the gaps and make life easier for you.

Easy fertility friendly diet
Whole unprocessed foods have always been the foundation of good health.

If just one diet really worked, we wouldn’t need any others, would we?

If you don’t want to read the science behind the recommendations further in this article, these are your winners and a must to add to your diet.

Top recommended foods across every category for promoting fertility.

1. Walnuts, 30 grams 1.2 oz.

2. Peanuts, 30 grams 1.2 oz.

3. Soy beans 50 gram 1.8 oz

4. Beef 250grams 8 oz.

Excellent foods for anti-oxidation, Vitamin D and Inositol.

1. Green leafy vegetables. Kale, broccoli, spinach, cabbage, Brussel sprouts.

2. Strawberries, oranges, lemons, lychees, papaya, and black currants.

Add the above recommended foods to your regular consumption of fresh, healthy, natural, unprocessed foods and you are at the top of the fertility food chain.

Specific foods that help with specific fertility problems.

1. Zero, they do not exist. Keep reading to find out why.

Not recommended foods anymore.

Grains, dairy, starches, flour and processed sugars (fruits are fine).

Many diets recommend the traditional food triangle.

Easy fertility friendly diet
The wheat industry sponsored this chart for the 80’s and 90’s.

The original food triangle of the 90’s has been replaced by the same Science that recommends the food of the 2000’s.

Easy fertility friendly diet
2010’s and the wheat, grain and sugar industry have been completely removed.

Science had made healthy eating worse than a highway full of pot holes.

I have been asked for weight loss treatments and dietary recommendations in my clinic for years. A partner once told me “abs are made in the kitchen, not in the gym” and she is right. The word “diet” is a real problem. Many people use a diet for a period of time, and then go back to eating what they used to before the ‘health kick.’ Many ended up exactly where they were before, months later. Should this be a surprise?

Diets don’t work because proper health and proper eating require lifestyle changes not temporary dietary changes.

The science of food has made more people obese and sick than it has made healthy. Eat this, don’t eat that… oh sorry, that was actually fine, the other thing was terrible..oops! Science even got the diabetes diet wrong in the 90’s prescribing foods that actually made people worse. In the 80’s carbohydrates were our best friend. 90’s calcium in milk is an absolute must. 2000’s get meat out of your diet! That will give you a heart attack. 2010’s carbohydrates make you fat, milk clogs your arteries and meat is the best source of good cholesterol you can get. Ugh!!!!

Micheal Pollan: In Defense of Food. Best Food Book Ever!

“Pollan argues that nutritionism as an ideology has overcomplicated and harmed eating habits. He says that rather than focusing on eating nutrients, people should focus on eating the sort of food that their ancestors would recognize, implying that much of what people eat today isn’t real food, but imitations of food.”

Eat Real Food. If it is made by a plant eat it. If it was made in a plant, don’t.

Easy fertility friendly diet
Fresh, natural healthy food or pharmaceuticals for health. What do your prefer?

This is so simple. Don’t eat processed food. If it was made in a plant (factory) and is processed by a whole heap of machinery to turn it from a natural product (potatoes/meat) into an unnatural product (Pringles/Devon), don’t eat it! It is crap, and no good for you!

Natural whole foods that you prepare and cook yourself will put you in the top 5% of the nutrition game, without any need for a nutritional expert diet.

Modern life has made fast and preprepared food commonplace. Problem is fast food is horribly unhealthy, and preprepared foods tend to have a whole heap of processed products in it to make it cheaper to sell. Avoid as much as possible.

Preparing every meal you eat is not always practical. If you have to eat out, eat something made fresh that day, with fresh ingredients. You cannot lose.

Eat by color. The greater the variety of color the greater variety of nutrition. Simple.

Easy fertility friendly diet
The variety of color in your food represents the variety of nutrition.

So this is the basic idea: eat real, natural, fresh, unprocessed food as much as you can and you are on a win. Make this the foundation of your eating preferences and watch your health soar. Ignore it, that’s ok: the doctors, surgeons and pharmaceuticals will be waiting.

What about fertility foods?

I promised an article on foods to boost fertility and that is coming now. We need to answer a fundamental question that underscores the whole idea of “Let Food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy Food.” Eat a proper healthy diet you will be healthier, it is true. Does that mean a good diet will avoid the ills and diseases of the body and mind? Unfortunately not.

The best thing about Fertility Foods? They are all healthy!
The worst thing about Fertility Foods? We don’t know if it actually helps.

Let’s cut to the chase before going on and recommending specific foods.

There has not been one single study done using any single or group of foods on a sample of men or women to test before and after fertility hormone benefits, improved egg/semen quality or quantity, nor increased pregnancy rates. EVER. Why? There is no money in it for the food industry, and no single or group of foods can actually do it. There is no fertility diet that is proven to actually improve fertility, but it certainly will improve your health, which can improve your fertility.

There is plenty of science in how to improve fertility in mice!

The problem is that the science behind the nutritional benefits of food and supplements that are effective have only been done on mice diets. This is standard research procedure and the foundation of much medical, supplement and nutritional knowledge. Problem is that the reproductive mouse model is not representative of women. The phenomenal breeding capacity of mice (4 – 14 pups per litter, grown in 21 days, done 5 – 10 times a year), versus 1 baby every 2 years for a woman, make the mouse model fall very short of the human model when it comes to reproductive augments.

Fertility foods have actions that can help factors appearing to affect reproduction.

Let’s make this simple. Science knows that oxidative stress, low Vitamin D, insufficient melatonin and decreased mitochondrial action of you cells impact your reproductive processes and can be functional causes for infertility. Science also knows that improvements in these deficiencies should make your natural reproductive processes function unhindered by these problems. This is how Fertility Foods appeared.

So what does commonsense say we need to help ourselves improve our fertility through food? Stop eating crap, eat fresh, healthy, unprocessed meats, fruits, vegetables, salads, nuts and some cheese.

What does science say that will help decrease negative fertility influences thereby promoting positive fertility influences through food? Exactly the same thing, just with actual specific ingredients.

1. Eat real food, not processed food.

2. Eat fresh meats, fruits, vegetables, salads, nuts and artisan cheese.

3. Stop eating processed carbohydrates like anything with gluten or starch in it. That means rice products, wheat products, potato products or anything that even resembles those products, and rice, wheat and potatoes too.

4. Stop eating processed sugar products. Like all those tasty sweets, lollies, pastries, ice cream, desserts, and basically anything that says low-fat on it (because it makes up with sugar). After a few weeks of eating healthy whole foods your cravings will pass entirely.

Specifically what is good?

Foods high in anti-oxidants. Oxidative stress is where rogue atoms steal electrons from healthy atoms in your body. This is totally normal, and the process of providing balance to unbalanced atoms with freely available extra electrons is easily done with foods high in Vitamin E & C.

Vitamin E

Eat one ounce or 30 grams of almonds or hazelnuts, pine nuts or peanuts or a dish with Salmon, avocado and red pepper will give you your daily requirements for Vitamin E.

Vitamin C

Strawberries, oranges, lemons, lychees, papaya, and black currants are fruits rich in Vitamin C. Kale, broccoli, Brussel sprouts are less tasty but just as effective. You don’t need to eat all them every day, but spreading them through the diet during the week is fine.

Omega 3 Fatty Acids

Omega‐3 fatty acids may provide an effective and practical avenue for delaying ovarian aging and improving oocyte quality at advanced maternal age.”

Foods high in Omega 3 Fatty acids include:

Easy fertility friendly diet

Melatonin

There are some significant studies on melatonin and how it can improve egg quality and preserve ovarian health in later age. Melatonin has been shown to help women’s eggs mature when undergoing IVF, but it does not improve implantation, pregnancy or miscarriage rates at all. Melatonin is an excellent free radical scavenger, it regulates when we sleep and when we wake, and is also shown to be in high levels in good quality eggs.

Foods high in Melatonin (or just get better sleep):

Easy fertility friendly diet

Vitamin D

(or roll up your sleeves in the sun between 10 am and 3 pm for 15 minutes)

Vitamin D is hotly contested in the scientific community whether it really helps improve egg quality or sperm quality. One thing is for sure, too little is a problem, too much is the same problem. Best thing to do is to go outside and get some sun on your skin. Failing that, these foods can help.

Inositol or Myo-Inositol

Myo-inositol is a carbocyclic sugar found in the human body, many fruits, and vegetables. Your kidneys produce 4g of Myo-inositol daily, and this is all the body needs. Inositol is present in all body tissues. It also called vitamin B8 and is one of the B complex vitamins. It is not recognized as a vitamin as your intestinal bacteria synthesize it from glucose for you.

Adding Inositol to your body is unnecessary.

Your body takes care of it for you: just like breathing, according to science.

Myo-inositol does help some women ovulate in the same way using the drug Metformin does. It is also found in the follicular fluids of women’s eggs.

Foods that provide Inositol (Myo-Inositol):

Easy fertility friendly diet
Soy beans are the most efficient way to get Inositol in a diet. 100g = 3.5 oz. Daily intake chart.

So there you have it. The series of Fertility Friendly Foods, what they are, what they are supposed to do, and the very clear winners that you should incorporate, and everything else you can not worry about.

Happy Eating!

Comments (6)

Hello Dr Martin,
I find it troubling that you recommend soy foods for fertility. Many women (And men) are hurt by the excessive phytoestrogenic properties of soy. Also, soy is often genetically modified. I developed severe menstrual bleeding after I added soy to my diet, and was told I would never have children. After doing a complete soy elimination (and many other changes) I conceived naturally at age 37. After that whole incidence, I don’t even want my daughter eating soy (which is found in almost every baked good out there…)
THank you for considering this email.
Kathryn

Hello Kathryn, how are you today? Thank you for your response. On this website, and in every single article and page, we work with science: what can and cannot be proven. Raw Soy Beans have been scientifically proven to be a tremendous source of nutrients that are desired when studying fertility. The top 4 and that is the science. Now that is soybeans (the vegetable), not all the soy-derived products on the market. For all the popular opinions out there against using soy products, science has some conclusions, and mostly it is very positive. If you want to learn more I found this link that will help you understand more on the subject. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/soy/
Thanks for checking in.

Hello Dr Scott
Great article, thank you.
I noticed that under omega 3 fatty acids, the photo contains foods high in omega 6.
Kind regards and thanks again!
Alice

Hi Alice, thank you your feedback you can read my full article on Omega 3’s and 6’s here https://www.advancedfertilitysolutions.com/are-epa-dha-omega-3-fatty-acids-the-key-to-a-long-fertile-life. This has been the hardest supplement, to find clarity through research on, I have ever come across.

Hello Dr. Scott, does the Ovance contain any estrogen ingredients?

All of the ingredients in our formulas are listed in the shop page under ‘ingredients.’ We do not use any hormones in our formulas, they are 100% natural products.

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