Pregnancy vs fair food

Fetus: 1, Fair Food: 0

By Brooke Greene / Editor in Chief

There are many joys when entering the world of motherhood. The announcements, the gender reveal, shopping for adorable little onesies and shoes.

There are tiny kicks and sonograms that make you fall in love with the idea of who this little person inside of you is going to become one day.

However, there are many things about pregnancy that are not so blissful, and that’s what I will be introducing in hopes of advising other mothers with balance work, school and a baby.

I am five months pregnant. I just passed my 20th week, which means I will find out very soon if my baby will be a boy or a girl. This also means my bump is beginning to become more noticeable, my energy is better, my nausea has improved, and I can feel my baby moving around.

With that being said, last week the Kansas State Fair was in town, and I have always loved going to the fair. I had my concerns about attending this year, as I wasn’t sure if all the smells, noise, and activity would impact me negatively.

My first visit was late on a Friday evening, and I had a wonderful time. The food was great and we played lots of games as it is not advised that pregnant women go on any of the rides.

My second visit was the following afternoon, which was not such a pleasant experience. I went with a fellow staff member to rate fair foods that most pregnant women could handle, and while I started strong, it didn’t have such a pleasant ending.

Throughout my entire fair-going experience, I tried the fried cheesecake, cheese curds, the root beer, pretzel bites, pineapple whip, grilled cherry lemonade, and unfortunately, when we got to one of my favorites, fried Oreos, I was not able to partake as I was too nauseous and overheated that my colleague made the review. Here are the ratings:

●      Cherry grilled lemonade. 7/10

○      Super sweet and flavorful

●      Pretzel bites with butter, salt and cheese. 6/10

○      Great but not Auntie Anne’s

●      Pineapple Whip 10/10 for first five minutes 5/10 overall

○      Great flavor, nasty aftertaste, and runoff once melted

○      Makes your tongue yellow

●      Fried Oreos 0/10

○      A colleague said there was too much breading

●      Cheese curds 7/10

○      Predictable

●      Fried cheesecake 6/10

○      Great but hard to eat, more like a cheesecake chimichanga

●      Root beer 8/10

○      Would be 10/10 if it had ice 

Once we were done, and I started to feel better, we headed home. The remainder of my evening was not as much fun, as I spent most of it sick and nauseous. It was interesting to see what my body could handle compared to everything I could normally do during fair season.

I saw many other baby bumps around the fair. Some mothers were doing just fine and some struggled a bit more in the heat like me. Next year, I will have a six-month-old baby to stroll around the fair with and have a whole new set of experiences.

Brooke Greene is the Collegian’s Editor in Chief and five months pregnant. She will share her experiences in being a first-time mom through the academic year.

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