They say you are what you eat but what if your favorite meals are quietly working against your dream of starting a family?
From overly processed junk to hormone-disrupting fast foods, what’s on your plate today could be affecting your fertility tomorrow. While Kenyan millennials and Gen Z are more health-conscious than ever, some hidden dietary choices could be quietly lowering chances of conception.
Picture this: You’re in your late 20s or early 30s, thriving in your career and maybe thinking about settling down. But when the time comes to start a family, things don’t go as planned. What if the problem isn’t medical but…dietary? From hormone-loaded chicken at your favorite fast food joint to pesticide-laced veggies from the highlands, everyday Kenyan food choices may be affecting fertility rates more than we realize.
Before you brush it off as superstition or genetics, let’s dive into the science of how what’s on your plate could be working against your body.
“Highly refined processed foods and over consumption of synthetic foods has actually been associated with hormonal imbalances in both men and women, and this contributes to infertility levels. Consumption of synthetic sugars, processed and refined foods- the noodles- I usually call them plastics or petroleum diet because you’re eating things your body can’t digest and it can’t assimilate or even excrete as waste. So it’s going to lead to an overload of toxins in the body and this will definitely damage your liver- a primary and key organ in maintaining fertility,” began Ms Lillian Mutanu, a Registered Dietician and Nutritionist, and founder of Mumina Wellness Solutions.
Ms Mutanu also included carbonated and energy (which provide no energy at all but provide the system with an overload of unwanted sugar and chemicals) drinks as part of foods to be avoided if one intends to have a baby in the near future.
“These drinks injure the he endocrine system, triggering hormonal imbalances. And this definitely causes infertility in both genders. So we have to increase intake of indigenous foods, things like vegetables, back to our old things that we used to eat- millet, Ugali wa kusiaga, terere– all those things that we used to really enjoy. That is what we should be going towards. And of course, if you cannot, you need to try as much as you can because sometimes, realistically it’s not possible to have the indigenous foods daily. So we allow room for prioritizing them when it’s possible,” added Ms Mutanu.
When backed up against the wall with no alternatives, Ms Mutanu advised people dealing with fertility issues to select less refined foods and pairing them with foods that can help. This includes pairing bread with either cheese or peanuts instead of simply having bread “to reduce the amount of the refined bread one is going to have.”
White rice can be paired with meat, avocado, vegetables in form of stir fry, cucumbers- this will increase the fiber intake and increase the supply of antioxidants in the body to “ensure the refining one cannot control.”
To this end, there are specific nutrients and superfoods that can enhance fertility and support reproductive hormones. These include Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), a nutrient and antioxidant that helps the body produce energy and prevent cell damage, magnesium, things that are rich in antioxidants.
“For something like Q10 and magnesium, they’re very important in the energy and metabolic pathways so that, you know, the whole process of reproductive, even conceiving a baby is very energy intense and your body needs an adequate supply of energy to ensure that the ovum gets fertilized, all those processes. So you definitely need to increase things like lean protein to get all these amino acids, the combination that are very important for ensuring that your system is balanced, your hormones are being produced effectively, of course you need the healthy fats, the omega-3s to reduce the anti-inflammation and all these that actually contribute to fertility,” added Ms Mutanu.
Nuts, meats, eggs, green vegetables are some of the foods people of reproductive age will need to increase in their diet to increase their chances of fertility. Iron, zinc and folate also promote pregnancy outcomes,
“I’ve seen on TikTok people doing ginger shots. They’re doing all these beetroot shots. They’re doing all these combinations of shots. They’re okay, but we need to do them with regulation because again, they are going to increase our supply of nutrients, support our liver function and definitely improve on fertility. Wheatgrass is also good if you’re trying to conceive as it helps support the body’s natural detoxification system by supporting the metabolism,” continued Ms Mutanu.
According to Ms Mutanu, as infertility in Africa is often blamed on women, data, however, shows that men are “a serious contributor” to infertility, and “we need to ensure that our males or our counterparts’ sperm quality is well taken care of. She recommended nuts and seeds to men in addition to balanced diets and reduction of masturbation to prevent immature ejaculation that can contribute to infertility.
“… and of course things that we ignore regulating alcohol smoking and stress all these actually contribute to infertility and they are the leading causes of modern day unexplained infertility in both genders whereby you find like both tests indicate people are okay, they’re okay to conceive but the body is not in a position to because it’s either overloaded with toxins or the stress is too much the hormonal imbalances are too high so the body cannot actually maintain or conceive or even maintain a pregnancy;
… and of course maintaining nutrition good nutrition before and during pregnancy is very essential to ensure that we carry our pregnancy to term to reduce stillbirths miscarriages and low birth weights that have actually been associated with malnutrition,” concluded Ms Mutanu.
