Q: Should I be drinking tea and coffee when I’m trying to get pregnant?

A: My recommendation would be to avoid black tea and coffee when trying to get pregnant. The concern is that caffeine can delay conception and this is especially important if you over 35 and trying to get pregnant. Some research has shown that drinking as little as one of coffee a day can delay conception by up to a year or more.

Whereas other research has shown that consuming less than 300 mgs a day, or what you’d get from drinking two or three cups of coffee, doesn’t appear to affect a woman’s fertility. (That’s according to a 2003 report from the Centre for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction at the National Institutes of Health.) On the other hand, at least one large study recently found that women who consumed 300 mg of caffeine or more a day took longer to conceive than those who got less or none.

To be on the safe side, and especially if you are finding it hard to conceive, I would suggest you eliminate it altogether. Caffeine has no nutritional value and can even cause your bones to lose some calcium, an important nutrient for a healthy pregnancy. There’s also evidence that drinking 3 or more cups of tea or coffee a day can increase your risk of miscarriage.

Because caffeine acts like a drug, you wouldn’t be advised to stop suddenly and go ‘cold turkey’ because you could experience quite dramatic withdrawal symptoms such as headaches, nausea, tiredness, muscle cramps and depression.

To minimise these effects, try cutting down gradually, substituting some of your usual drinks for healthier alternatives. It’s much better to cut down slowly over a few weeks. Begin by substituting decaffeinated coffee for half of your total intake per day, and then gradually change over to all decaffeinated. Then, slowly substitute other drinks, such as herbal teas and grain coffees. You should, ideally, eventually eliminate decaffeinated coffee as well because coffee contains other stimulants (theobromine and theophylline) which are not removed when the coffee is decaffeinated.

As a substitute for coffee try Caro, Bambu or Yannoh which are grain coffees and contain healthy natural ingredients like rye, barley, chicory and acorns. Good alternatives to tea include herb teas and fruit teas. And don’t forget that caffeine isn’t just in the usual suspects (coffee, tea, and cola) it’s also in chocolate, other soft drinks (e.g. colas) and energy drinks. It’s also in a variety of over-the-counter drugs, including some headache, cold, and allergy remedies, so it is easy to have too much caffeine in your system without even realising it.

It is thought that millet was the first cereal to be used domestically and has been used in India and Africa as a staple food for thousands of years. In the UK, millet is most associated as a food for birds especially budgerigars!

Millet is a versatile food and can be used on its own instead of rice and also in soups, porridge and ground to a flour to make bread, cakes and muffins. It can also be sprouted to use in salads.

Millet seeds are encased in an indigestible hull which has to be removed before we can eat it. The millet seeds are like tiny yellow beads and have a sweetish nutty taste when cooked.

Although we tend to think of millet as a grain it is in fact a seed. And being a seed rather than a grain, it contains a fair amount of protein (about 15%).

Nutritionally, millet is rich in the B vitamins especially B3 and B6 and also the minerals magnesium, zinc, calcium and iron.

As millet is gluten-free it is an excellent grain for those people with Coeliac’s disease and for anybody with a wheat intolerance as it is not related to the wheat family.

Serves 4:

• 1 cup millet
• 3 cups water
• 1 medium sweet potato
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp curry powder
• 1 tsp fresh ginger
• ½ cup fresh coriander, chopped

Toast the millet in a heavy pan until it starts to smell fragrant. Leave aside. Put the water, sweet potato, mustard seeds, curry and ginger into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Add the toasted millet.

Cover and reduce heat and cook for 25-30 minutes or until the millet has absorbed all the water. Allow to cool.

With your hands, mix the coriander with the mixture. Form into small rissoles and grill over a medium heat, until each side is golden. Can be served with a salad and/or a green vegetable like broccoli.