...to think that if one of your guests is pregnant, and a big feature of dinner is a huge, delicious-looking cheese plate...

[LoveInAColdClimate]

...at least one of those cheeses should be pasteurised? Had dinner with PIL (who are lovely and who I get on with really well, so this is not a general sniping thread) last night, which featured, as pudding, a big "proper cheese shop" cheese board, but no cheese I could eat. They know what I can have and what I can't, so this can't have been a mistake. I have been v spoilt at other friends' and family who have sought out yummy cheese I'm able to eat, so I know I'm v lucky. But when pregnant or no-cows'-milk friends come to ours for supper, I love sourcing cheese they can eat if I'm doing cheese as part of the meal. It just seemed a bit weird to make half the meal something I couldn't have. Am I being precious or is this odd, especially as the cheese had been specially bought and so one type I could eat could have been chucked in? Frankly a bit of cheddar would have been fine, I just felt really left out.

milsean

from guidelines in THIS country, from the NHS website:

Soft cheeses can contain listeria bacteria that cause an infection called listeriosis. To avoid this risk, pregnant women are advised not to eat soft cheeses, regardless of whether the cheese is pasteurised or unpasteurised.

i trust the UK guidelines.

Milsean, I wasn't having a dig, I was genuinely curious as your previous post (if we're talking about digs, here) seemed to suggest that it was "nothing special" in response to the point I was making, which was that in the context of your whole life, pregnancy is a very small part of it for the majority of women. My grandmother had eight children and five additional pregnancies. She is 89 and so this was still only a very small fraction of her life. Few people repeat that experience these days.

If they are lovely and they know exactly what you can't eat, why do you think they served it up?

Why? The uk guidelines are massively contradictory. The microbiologists in the neonatal specialisms disagree massively with midwives just for one eg

"THIS COUNTRY" is rather meaningless, I'm not in the UK, so yes I said in your country. And as I said, I'm pretty sure that there has never been a case of listeria linked to soft pasteurised cheese. Their definitely has from bagged salad though,and your guidelines don't advise against that.

I'm not saying don't trust your own guidelines, knock yourself out, but they aren't the bible or anything.

Milsean, the majority of posters on this board are based in the UK. For posters based in Ireland, the guidelines seem to be similar.
While there are many other women and men of other nationalities who post on these forums, it is spurious to suggest that NHS guidelines are "meaningless".

@warthog. I'm in France, and the guidelines here are that pasteurised cheese is OK. See here (for French speakers)

www.pasteur.fr/ip/easysite/pasteur/fr/presse/fiches-sur-les-maladies-infectieuses/listeriose

Can you give me a reason for thinking that British guidelines on maternity care are fundamentally more reliable than French ones ? Because having tested maternity services as a patient in both countries, I'd trust the French maternity care over the British any day.

I think you are being quite reasonable, IF they realised they should have bought something suitable as you say just like you'd source veggie cheese/goats cheese/low fat cheese etc to suit a particular guest.

But I have recently been dieting and although when in my strict phase I did warn people before eating at their houses, many make meals that meant I couldn't really eat anything. I know its not the same, but some people aren't especially considerate.

I didn't say the guidelines are meaningless though did I? Do check again.

What I'm saying is why would you assume that automatically your own guidelines are 100% right and others are wrong, to the point where you are reminding people in bold that pasteurised cheeses are NOT SAFE! ? Thats a notion that seems to be unique to the UK and not backed up by available evidence. So like I said, knock yourself out using them, but don't insist to others with authority.

YABU and very precious. I remember being just the same Really, who behaves like this?

My hippy MIL has unpasteurised milk from the farm up the road. She was always offering me cups of tea with it in, and I always politely explained that I couldn't have it and why. She never made any special effort to get the normal stuff in, and I think she just thought I was probably being a bit precious tbh! She has my dd quite often, and I suspect she probably gives it to her despite asking dp to have a polite word in her ear. To be fair, I was given raw cows milk from my GPs farm up the road from the age of 6 months "and it never did me any harm"...

Though on th other hand at medical school the other day we had a lecture on infectious diseases and we were informed that cows milk is sterile until it leaves the cow - the reason it is pasteurised is that their udders are likely to be covered in faeces when they are milked and hence pathogens get into their milk. Yuk!

So to conclude, your MIL either didn't realise or perhaps didn't really believe the advice.

Do check again? I have to chuckle that you called me rude!

You implied that referencing guidelines in this country was meaningless. Unless, of course, you were actually saying that the UK itself is meaningless, which is one way of interpreting your statement that "THIS COUNTRY" is rather meaningless in this context.

I stated that as the majority of posters in this country will be operating to those guidelines, it was not at all meaningless for these to be cited by posters on this forum.

kirsty75005 i think that the nhs guidelines err on the side of caution. and that's the side i want to be on.

it's 9 months. so what? not very long to stop eating a few foods. otoh, a dead baby if you get listeria. is it really that worth it for a butternut and goats cheese tart???? really??????????

someone said about 150 cases of listeria a year, so chances are very small. but still 150 cases! and knowing my luck, i'd be one of them.

it's a no brainer for me.

Well, at least 2/3 of those 150 cases are elderly people. Which is thought to be due to a lack of understanding about use by dates and following storage instructions.

So I do really think that the 'side of caution' should be understanding how food poisoning is caused and cooking at risk foods thoroughly instead of just not eating them at all.

I have to say that the NHS guidelines will be issued on a cost/benefit basis. If they felt the risk was insignificant, they wouldn't tell you to avoid what could otherwise be a nutritious food. In other words, they wouldn't want to discourage pregnant women from eating certain cheeses, which are potentially a valuable source of calcium, vit D etc, unless the evidence suggested the potential risk outweighed the benefit.

I have to admit I succumbed to a bit of goats cheese with a rind whilst on holiday in Portugal when pg. I knew the advice, I chose to ignore it and take a small risk, but that was my choice. If however I had not been warned of these risks by the NHS, I had become ill and my unborn baby was harmed, I would have been mightily peeved. NHS advice is evidence based, that don't just pluck stuff out of thin air.

I would never condemn a woman for ignoring the advice if she so chose, but I wouldn't go around saying the advice was nonsense.

No, I was saying (quite clearly I think) that you saying this country is rather meaningless as you could be anywhere and so could I, so THIS doesn't actually mean anything. I was also highlighting the folly of arbitrarilary relying on your own countries guidelines when they aren't in line with the majority of other countries. If you are looking for scientific rules to go by, it makes sense to go with a majority rather than being patriotic, IMO.

Only 16% of cases in the UK in the 15 years up to 2005 were pregnancy related, which equates to an average of 20 a year in preg women. And the 2 main outbreaks in that time came from butter and premade sandwiches, neither of which you are advised to avoid, IIRC.

As always, science and logic are your friends. But none of that really matters anyway, you can eat or not eat whatever you want and whatever makes you most comfortable. I just find it odd to expect everyone else to keep up and plan every course around that.

Milsean I think I have a crush on you.... your advice is sound indeed. Can people please, please stop being so precious and understand what 20 cases of listeriosis in pregnant women actually means in terms of level of risk? And can all these people who are striving so hard to avoid cheese also make sure they never ride in a car while pregnant? The chances of being involved in a car wreck while pregnant are infinitely higher than developing listeriosis, but, as usual, people prefer to focus their efforts on avoiding minuscule risks rather than actual assessing what is/isn't dangerous to them and their baby in utero.

Good book: The Culture of Fear - explains why we, as people, go into hysterics over essentially negligible risks.

Milsean, it's about reducing the risks, no?

of course you can choose to ignore guidelines because they're just that.

i agree - science and evidence and all that. and there IS evidence, albeit rare. it's happened and therefore it's happened to someone.

that's statistics for you - things might be very unlikely, but totally shit if they happen to you! because they HAVE happened to someone!

I had a teacher at school who had a baby affected by listeriosis in the womb. So I did avoid soft cheeses, and also I was very careful about any mouldy food at all. It's quite common for cows to spontaneously abort if they eat mouldy hay. I know I'm not a cow but mould toxins are funny things (vague memories of peanuts in long ago microbiology lectures).

Good lord, I hadn't realised how many of you are terrible hosts. So none of you ask your guests if there's anything they can't eat or simply detest before you cook for them?

no never, and never have it asked of me either :)

156 cases of Listeria last year, 17 in pregnant women, according to NHS. they say an estimated 22% of cases in pregnancy result in the death of the baby, so that is maybe 4 babies who die each year from something that can also be found in a hell of a lot of things no one is avoiding. (e.g., butter, packaged sandwiches)

To me that is an almost non-existent risk and I eat whatever cheese I fancy. everyone must use their own judgement though ...

Here's another who would once have eaten the cheese (not now - vegan :o ) and who thinks that the OP is BU.

yes, but its the risks as you see them, and everyone sees them differently.

So (and to answer another Q at the same time) if I was putting together a cheese board and had a pregnant guest, I'd include two or so that she could eat, possibly make it all fit the guidelines (as I know them), however it would never occur to me to NOT use a pasteurised soft cheese amongst them. Which following your rules would be wrong, mine would be fine. You see the problem.

However going on the basis of actually outbreaks, what you shouldn't be eating at all is butter and salad! Another problem!