Mumsnet Talk

Ok another food related thread from me!

I am craving rare steak. I know I can't have it. My diet is good, I'm taking pregnancy vitamins, so have no idea where this craving for bloody meat has come from!?! What can I have rather than well done steak which might not fill this void!!?? It is the rareness and blood I am after!! Must be something to do with iron? I am currently 11 weeks pregnant...

can you not eat rare steak when PG?

advice is not to...

FWIW, and im not you, i deffo ate it and runny eggs

i thought it was advised to avoid not banned

why not?

genuinely not being arsey BTW

toxoplasmosis - isn't that the reason?

risk of salmonella and toxoplasmosis...

I have to admit (and this isn't a suggestion you should do) that I had a rare steak once I hit 13 weeks. It was from a local butcher who knew the quality of his meat etc. I wouldn't have done it in a restaurant or with cheap steak from the supermarket.

I ate rare steak. Just made sure I got it from a reputable source.

<shamelessly enabling>

I had one well done steak when I pregnant and thought, dear god I can't do this!!!! I just had it rare. The risk is very small.

I like my steak rare and my eggs runny, and haven't sacrificed either during pregnancy... I'm a bit more picky with other things like cured meat and shellfish but on the whole I haven't adapted my diet at all during pregnancy. So if I were you I'd treat myself to a juicy, bloody as hell steak.

Of course that could just be me

Oh I'd love one too, along with a large glass of malbec

Sorry I can't think of anything to satisfy your juicy/bloody cravings!

I ate a pretty rare steak a few weeks ago. Admittedly through my own ineptitude (I meant to cook it at least medium-well done, but I ate most of it anyway)... I've also eaten runny poached eggs and sushi. So don't listen to me.

I was told when pg with ds2 that I should always give in to cravings because they were my body's way of getting what it needed. Even the 'illegal' ones, as long as it wasn't all day every day.
Enjoy your steak

I'd have one if I were you! I like mine medium rare and have had a few this pregnancy.

I had rare steak regularly. DS arrived fit and healthy yesterday.

From what I recall when I was looking into these things at the beginning the guidance used to be rare was fine for steak so long as it was properly cooked and charred on the outside (ie how a good steak should be). The nhs guidance to fully cook all meat was changed relatively recently solely as precautionary measure while they undertook a review. I took this as meaning there is no reason to suggest rare steak may pose a likely risk.

You can have rare steak. It just needs to be seared well on the outside.

Look at the nhs guidelines.

From what I remember, mince needs to be fully cooked (so posh burgers in pubs) because its the surface area of the meat that can be contaminated. Mince has a far larger surface area that is exposed to the air and therefore to bacteria. Steak, as long as it is well charred on the outside can be eaten rare. Eggs can be eaten runny as long as they are lion stamped. I ate lots of steak when pregnant, had anaemia and there's only so much spinach I could handle!

Fuck it, just have one. As long as the outside is properly seared, and the animal was healthy, there is really hardly any risk at all.

Steak is fine - and as rare as you like it. It's mince that needs to be well done. But honestly, you have more of a chance of contracting something from poorly washed lettuce or vegetables than you do from eating meat.

Rare steak is fine as long as it is cooked on the outside - that is where any bugs will be.

Mince, sausages, burgers etc must be cooked through, as must chicken and pork.

Runny eggs are also fine - lion marked eggs are vaccinated against salmonella.

I'm eating mine quite rare and I just make sure it's a decent whole cut and the outside is properly seared. Shame I can't have a lovely Shiraz to go with it

For goodness sake, of course you can have a small glass of wine!

How on earth did previous generations survive...

Sod the small, you can have a large glass of wine if you're only having one drink per week! And only having one glass is a brilliant excuse to buy very, very fine wine.

Rare steak is NOT always fine to eat - pls do not eat it - it has nothing to do with bugs or whether it's come from a reputable source - it can be a source of toxoplasmosis which cows get from soil. As someone who ate rareish steak once at 8 weeks and then had a blood test at 16 weeks coming back showing a toxo infection at 8 weeks i am the the statistic which backs up all the advice to avoid it. What followed was a month of hell of blood tests, an amnio and the real chance that a termination may have to follow if the result had been positive (luckily the amnio showed it hadn,t transferred to the baby because i caught it so early in the pregnancy). Unless you have had the test to show you are immune to toxo you should avoid all rare meat - the toxo parasite lives in muscle tissue so it is only eliminated by cooking through - pls believe me when i tell you that no rare steak is worth what we went through.