I ate during labour. A lot. Not huge things, but fairly constant snacking (once I made Dru go make oatmeal; later in hospital one midwife fetched sandwitches for everyone).

I am convinced that this had a great impact on my being able to home-labour for more that a day and to have the strenght to push when that time finally came. (Even with the very real possibiliy of needing a c-section, my midwives never advised me not to eat.)Now some women get very nauseated with contractions, I got some but always followed buy hunger. I think that disallowing food is one of several unnecessary cruelities of the standard hospital birth model (but I am very midwife-biased!)