You’re here because you’re curious about whether it’s safe to eat goji berries for pregnancy. What are the health benefits and side effects?
First off, you’ve probably only seen goji berries dried like raisins unless you’ve lived in Asia. When they are fresh, they are orangish-red berries that grow on bushes. They are also known as wolfberries.
In traditional medicine, goji berries are used to treat eye problems, high blood pressure, and diabetes. They are a superfood that’s rich in antioxidants. You might have had them on your cereal, in granola, on a salad, or made into juice or herbal tea.
But is it safe to eat goji berries while pregnant? Let’s be honest, if you only eat a few sprinkled on your food every now and then, it’s probably okay. But there have been no human studies about whether it’s safe to eat goji berries when you’re pregnant or how they affect a developing baby in the womb.
More importantly, goji berries contain betaine and that component can cause a spontaneous abortion. They also seem to imitate estrogen which can unbalance hormones and wreak havoc during pregnancy. If you’ve noticed spotting or bleeding, immediately stop eating goji berries and get medical attention (1).
Do goji berries cause birth defects? At the time of writing, we didn’t find any studies specifically about how goji berries affect a fetus. But goji contains a lot of vitamin A. If a pregnant woman consumes too much vitamin A, it can cause a baby to have birth defects.
Who should avoid goji berries? We’re sorry to be such a wet blanket about all this, but it’s really best for pregnant women to avoid goji berries. Not only can they affect the pregnancy, they also have other unpleasant side effects. They can affect blood sugar by lowering blood glucose too much and that’s bad news for gestational diabetes. They may also intensify the effects of blood thinning medication and anticoagulants to cause excessive bleeding.
Not only that, but goji berries may lower blood pressure too much, especially if the person eating them is already taking medication for high blood pressure. Lastly, too many goji berries can lead to diarrhea (2).
Is goji berry good for a baby? As there have been no studies done on how goji berries affect a developing baby, we can honestly say we don’t know. However, the berries contain a substance called zeaxanthin which helps unborn babies develop their eyes and nervous system. Happily, expectant mothers don’t have to eat goji berries to obtain zeaxanthin. It’s also abundant in spinach, kale, broccoli, peas, and egg yolks.
What should pregnant women eat instead of goji berries? Instead of sprinkling goji berries on your food or baking them into muffins, switch to dried cranberries or blueberries. Both are high in antioxidants and have other health benefits for moms and babies.
Another option is to eat more spinach, kale, and peas as they are as nutritious as blueberries and cranberries. If you’re not vegan, have some scrambled eggs as the yolks contain zeaxanthin to help a baby develop healthy vision.
Check out our favorite goji berry alternatives below:
| Instead of goji berries, try these foods | Highlights |
|---|---|
| Honestly Cranberry - Unsweetened Dried Cranberries |
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| Herbaila Dried Blueberries, No Sugar Added |
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| JUJUME Organic Jujube Superfood |
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| Organic Dried Blueberries, Cranberries, and Tart Cherries Mix |
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| Brad's Plant-Based Kale Chips |
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| Rhythm Superfoods Kale Chips, Variety Pack |
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| The Better Chip Whole Grain Chips | Spinach & Kale | |
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| Navitas Organics Goji Berries |
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Instead of goji berries, try these foods
Honestly Cranberry – Unsweetened Dried Cranberries
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Cranberries, like goji berries, are packed with antioxidants with anti-inflammatory effects. They may help improve eyesight and strengthen the heart while protecting against cancer and urinary tract infections. Weirdly, although they are tart, they reduce the amount of acid in the mouth to reduce tooth decay.
Still, it’s not wise to eat too many cranberries because they can cause kidney stones and increase the risk of bleeding. Enjoy cranberries in moderation during your pregnancy (3).
These are dried cranberries with no added sugar. In fact, they have no additives whatsoever unlike those manufactured by a certain famous brand.
The berries are grown in the USA with natural nutrients and biological controls. They are non-GMO, too. Reviewers say these are the freshest-tasting and sweetest unsweetened dried cranberries they’ve ever tried. The expiration date is usually about a year after the manufacturing date.
Herbaila Dried Blueberries, No Sugar Added
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Dried blueberries are a sweet and delicious alternative to goji berries. They are very high in antioxidants and low in sugar. They may prevent heart disease and maintain healthy eyesight. On the downside, if you’re allergic to raspberries, apples, peaches, or avocados (that all contain salicylates), you might want to skip the blueberries (4).
These dried blueberries are all-natural, additive-free, and not genetically altered. They come in a resealable pouch that keeps them fresh and plump.
JUJUME Organic Jujube Superfood
Unless you’ve lived in the Middle East, you may never have heard of jujube fruit. But you’ve probably heard about heavy metals and how harmful they are to pregnant women and developing babies. Did you know that jujube fruit can help eliminate heavy metals from mother’s milk? A study done in 2014 in Iran found that 15 grams a day of fresh jujube fruit made a positive difference (5).
The good news is that jujube fruit is now grown organically in California. It’s hand-sorted for quality control and packed without any added ingredients. That’s right, no oily coatings, preservatives, or sugar in this bag.
Even if you aren’t pregnant or a nursing mother, jujube fruit can boost your diet with extra vitamin C and nutrients to help you ward off premature aging. It strengthens the immune system and reduces anxiety, too.
Reviewers say the fruit is surprisingly juicy and sweet. It tastes a bit like caramel. Just be careful about not biting the seed in the middle.
Organic Dried Blueberries, Cranberries, and Tart Cherries Mix
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Go big. This mix features some of the most vitamin-rich fruits around. In our opinion, they are also the tastiest. Each serving is packed with vitamin C, copper, manganese, and iron. And it’s not just milk that has calcium – these berries do, too.
If you’ve been shying away from uber tart fruit with too much pucker power, no worries. The berries are lightly sweetened with organic sugar and treated with organic sunflower oil to keep them soft and separated.
Feel free to enjoy the fruit in your cereal, granola, salad, sauces, cookies, and muffins. Reviewers say that they turn anything into a treat including plain yogurt.
Brad’s Plant-Based Kale Chips
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Yes, you can bake your own kale chips at home. But on a hot summer day it’s not much fun to run the oven. It’s much easier to munch on these delicious chips made from non-GMO ingredients. They are USDA-organic and gluten-free.
As you might know, kale is an excellent substitute for goji berries because it contains zeaxanthin, an essential nutrient that helps babies in the womb develop a healthy nervous system and good vision. It’s also full of vitamins.
What’s amazing is that a one-ounce serving of these kale chips provides 158% of the daily value of vitamin K. This vitamin is crucial for rapid wound healing and strong bones.
Even though kale is not a fruit, it still contains a significant amount of vitamin C. And similar to spinach, it has an impressive amount of iron. See, you don’t have to feel guilty about snacking on chips!
Reviewers say that this snack is surprisingly flavorful for being so low in calories and sodium. It has 70 calories per serving and only 5 grams of fat with no trans fat or saturated fat. Besides kale, it’s flavored with organic sunflower seeds, chickpea miso, and Aspergillus Koji spores.
Rhythm Superfoods Kale Chips, Variety Pack
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If you prefer more zest when it comes to kale chips, try this multi-pack with various flavors. It contains spicy jalapeno, mango habanero, garlic and onion, honey mustard, zesty vegan nacho, Kool ranch, and original.
Each one is made in Austin, Texas by a brand that promotes positive thinking and staying active to be happy and healthy. They crafted the chips by tossing fresh organic kale with a special dressing crafted with organic herbs, spices, and seeds. Moreover, each flavor is certified gluten-free, vegan, and Kosher.
The good news is that the chips come in snack-sized bags. But the bad news is that they are so delicious that it’s hard to eat only one.
The Better Chip Whole Grain Chips | Spinach & Kale |
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If kale is so good for you, what happens if you mix it with spinach? Even Popeye would like these crunchy corn chips with spinach, kale, sunflower oil, and sea salt. They are gluten-free and made with all natural ingredients.
But before you get too excited, make sure they suit your meal plan. After all, it’s a small bag but it contains 210 calories and almost half of those are from fat. (At least there’s no trans fat.) On the bright side, each snack sack has a little bit of fiber and protein and a whole lot of vitamin K.
Navitas Organics Goji Berries
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If you’ve made it this far, you’ve seen all sorts of alternatives to goji berries. We hope you’ve selected something to try. But if you’re still set on getting goji berries, we’d like to recommend these.
The main benefit is that they are USDA organic certified and more importantly, unsulfured. They are not treated with sulfites, sulfur dioxide, potassium bisulfate, or metabisulfites. That’s great news for people with asthma as sulfur dioxide can trigger an asthma attack.
Furthermore, they are preservative-free. Each resealable bag contains only dried goji berries harvested from the Ningxia province in China.
Even though they are a wonderful source of vitamins and minerals, it’s imperative to take it easy and eat them only sparingly (or not at all) when you’re pregnant. Part of the issue is that they contain a lot of vitamin A which can cause congenital malformations if you eat too much of it when you’re pregnant.
Conclusion
Should you eat goji berries for pregnancy? We wouldn’t recommend it because the health benefits don’t outweigh the side effects. Goji berry mimics estrogen and has a lot of vitamin A so eating too much of it may cause problems with a pregnancy. Thankfully, there are safe alternatives like other dried fruits and fresh vegetables that are full of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.
We hope our reviews of goji berry alternatives helped you find tasty treats today. If you’ve enjoyed any of the products we reviewed above, we’d love to hear from you. Feel free to leave us a comment below.
Sources:
1. https://www.pregnancyfoodchecker.com/are-goji-berries-safe-during-pregnancy-benefits/ Are Goji Berries Safe During Pregnancy? Are There Benefits? By Gina Waggott, Medically Reviewed by Janet Gordon RD, MBDA, Last updated on September 28, 2021
2. https://www.stylecraze.com/articles/serious-side-effects-of-goji-berries/ Goji Berries Side Effects: 6 Ways They May Cause Harm, By Sindhu Koganti, Medically Reviewed by Madhu Sharma, RD, published April 28, 2022
3. https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/health-benefits-cranberries Cranberries, by Angela Nelson, Medically Reviewed by Neha Pathak, MD on September 21, 2020
4. https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/health-benefits-blueberries Top 5 health benefits of blueberries, by Jo Lewin, registered nutritionist
5. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5322685/ Kelishadi R, Hasanghaliaei N, Poursafa P, Keikha M, Ghannadi A, Yazdi M, Rahimi E. A randomized controlled trial on the effects of jujube fruit on the concentrations of some toxic trace elements in human milk. J Res Med Sci. 2016 Nov 7;21:108. doi: 10.4103/1735-1995.193499. PMID: 28250785; PMCID: PMC5322685.