I'm trying to think back seven years ago to a time when I was pregnant. I'm trying to recall exactly what I ate before conceiving my baby #1. I'm not having much luck with this memory game. My long-ago diet details are pretty much a blur. Same goes for the time preceding baby #2. No idea what I ate then either. I do know this, though: I had boys. Hmmm. Could it have been polyunsaturated fats I was ingesting?

New research supports the notion that a mother's diet before conception can influence the sex of her kids. Well, in sheep, anyway.

Ewes fed a diet enriched with polyunsaturated fats for four weeks prior to breeding were significantly more likely to conceive males than females. Specifically, seven out of 10 lambs conceived by sheep on a high-fat diet were male. Five out of 10 females were delivered by sheep fed a standard diet of roughly the same calories but less fat.

Think this might work for you? Don't get your hopes up just yet -- although feel free to give it a try. Researchers are not yet sure if the increase in males was due to a diet higher in fat in general or a diet higher in polyunsaturated fats. There may be nothing magical about polyunsaturated fats at all. Same goes for breakfast cereal -- in April, it was suggested that women who consumed more calories in the form of cereal were more likely to conceive boys.