Everyone knows that pregnancy is responsible for some dramatic changes to a woman's body.

Your scalp dries up, your feet itch - and sometimes swell up - and in the later stages your stomach enters a room minutes before you do.

Bizarre things happen when you're expecting. But perhaps none more so than the changes in your diet.

Never at any time in your life do you feel sudden urges to eat or drink a certain something. There have been times in recent weeks when I would have fought my way through a forest of thorns and slain a pack of sabre-toothed tigers for a pickled onion and crisp sandwich (in thin-sliced white bread, with a slight coating of marge).

Pregnancy sends you racing to the supermarket, as if on an invisible pulley, magnetically drawing you to products you would not only never consider buying in your "normal" state, but which you did not know existed.

You are a woman with a mission - you know exactly what you want - a jar of roll-mop herrings, a sickly dessert with whipped cream, a little sponge, jam and cherries, or a bottle of milk stout.

Cravings they call them. When I was pregnant with my daughter, it was cherryade. The last time I'd bought a bottle I had scuffed knees, grubby fingers and a runny nose (come to think of it I still have all those physical attributes) and could barely see over the sweet shop counter.

And I lusted after something I'd never had before - cans of ice-cold beer.

Most desires disappear immediately after the birth. But my taste for Tetley's stayed, and there's nothing I like better than a can or two when I get home from work.

This time around it's pickled onions and - unfortunately - chocolate (thankfully not at the same time).

The hardest taste change both times around has been an intense dislike of caffeine - very common in early pregnancy. However much you miss that regular, comforting cuppa - of tea in my case - the mere thought of it is enough to send you running to the nearest toilet.

Taste-wise, pregnancy is a roller-coaster ride - one minute you feel great, the next appalling. But even when you're green around the gills, you still feel oddly ravenous for certain foods. And, contrary to feeling sick in the "normal" state, food is often the antidote - the very thing which makes you feel better.

It's difficult to decide exactly how you feel, and even harder to describe it to other people.

"I'm as sick as a dog, but yes, I do fancy a triple-deck burger with lashings of mustard."

I suppose I should be grateful. You hear all sorts of tales about cravings. I haven't yet had the urge to run to the coal bunker for a lump of Grimethorpe Colliery's best to stick in a sandwich, or chomp my way through the cardboard tube inside a toilet roll.

Although come to think of it, the latter does sound quite appetising - stuffed with pickled onions and crisps.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.