I want Brie and pate .......

[LoveBeingAbleToNamechange]

Just got back from waitrose and couldn't help but stand at the Brie and pate and imagine I was eating them. Very rare for it to bother me but today, [stamps foot] I want it

Looks like I'll be picking the prawns out of tonight's paella then :( (or just cooking them properly, not that I was intending to do otherwise)

Having said that, I inhale peanuts. They are delicious and no nut allergies on either side. I also had a half pint of larger shandy at DSil's 18th birthday party. In the words of my midwife "Life has to be worth living".

Chicken sushi is crap by the way. I miss real sushi with a physical pain but even the chilled out midwife said no to that :(

So cooked prawns are ok? Would my beloved M&S cold prawns be ok as long as I store them correctly - they have been cooked and then chilled.

Was so pleased to see from NHS website that pink steak (seared well on all sides) is back on!

I have severe edema so I have had to cut my salt intake down from 2000mg per day to 500mg for the past 5 weeks. It is really hard to eat a balanced diet that is tasty with such low salt levels. My diet is now based around fresh fruit, veg, nuts, seeds, grains and yoghurt (with fruit and toasted oatmeal in it). DH works in the meat business and knows that 99% of meat sold is injected with a brine solution so it remains tender if you overcook it. I was devested to find that ice cream had salt in it. As expected baked goods are off the menu. I can't wait to have my toast with butter and marmite!

Green salad is fine. DH won't have bagged salad in the house as he says the bags encourage bacterial growth. He also won't eat foods from certain countries due to their lack of hygine rules or known lax enforcement.

Mab chicken sushi sounds disgusting

What about avocado rolls? some sushi has cooked fish too. Don't give up hope!

Badgerwife Even if there's family history of allergy, you can eat peanuts when pregnant/breastfeeding. The advice has changed.

Peanuts in Pregnancy

I thought sushi was fine?

I threw caution to the wind and had a Greek salad full of Feta yesterday. Yum.

And, despite lots of atropic allergies on both sides of the family, have the occassional bag of peanuts. After 1st trimester hyperemisis, I consider eating anything to be an acheivement.

In France, my sister was not told to steer clear of anything, even wine.

I have to say, I've only just joined mumsnet (literally... just now!) and these sorta conversations are the exact reason!

Feeling totally crap so came home from work, and I'm now almost peeing myself... "runny egg syndrome" had me crying :o

I can't believe I forgot to order this just after I delivered back in April:

www.pongcheese.co.uk/shop/cheese-gift-boxes/the-new-mums-box-of-indulgence.html

Sushi is fine unless it has raw fish or shellfish (right?)

I think a lot of people assume all sushi is raw fish so just say no sushi, but there's plenty of other types as well.

Feta is fine according to my giant pregnancy book from the midwife. I was delighted! NHS website also says cooked prawns are a-ok so paella is back on.

dreamingbohemian - it was the most pointless thing I have ever had. Just... mushy and flavourless.

Crosshair - it's fine as long as the fish has been frozen first and then defrosted, as that kills the tapeworm 'bugs'. So supermarket sushi would be fine. I have tried to convince DH of this to no avail.

DH also picked all the pineapple out of my sweet and sour the other night as he had somewhere read that pineapple could bring on labour. Firstly, I strongly suspect this is along the same lines as eating a curry and having sex in terms of bringing on labour - neither of which seem to concern him - and secondly I am 12+ weeks, not 40+. Does anyone else have a DH/DP who insists on googling the appropriateness of everything you eat?

badgerwife, i think when people talk about salads, they are referring to the bacterial risks posed by foods that have been sitting around for ages under heat lamps (like the salad bars at nasty restaurants), i think i mentioned earlier that i would personally judge the risk of a nasty bacterial infection from a salad bar or deli counter to be far higher than from a piece of (more than likely pasteurised) brie in this day and age. im all for people engaging their brains and judging risk personally for themselves and making appropriate choices. on this basis:

i dont eat swordfish because i understand how mercury works in the food chain and its not pretty
i drink a couple of cups of coffee a day because frankly, in the third trimester of pregnancy when im still expected to function at work despite being shattered i do need an occasional kick start.
i dont eat pate, because im vegetarian, and its vile.
i dont smoke.
i judge all foodstuffs by the source and if somewhere looks like they dont pay good attention to hygeine i wouldnt eat the bread let alone the illicit substance, i mean soft cheese.
i have the occasional glass of wine.
i have the occasional brie/goats cheese etc (presuming they are from a decent source, refrigerated and so forth).
i also use a steam room for 5 or 10 minutes to relax.
i eat whole earth peanut butter all the time.
i eat a very healthy, well balanced diet, hopefully creating a child with a decent immune system and appetite that wont wimper at the sight of bacteria.

i find it weird how people continue to obsess about these minor issues surrounding soft cheese etc yet it continues to be acceptable for so many people to eat shockinginly poor quality processed foods throughout pregnancy and beyond, and wean their kids onto dinosaur shaped by-products from the meat industry without question.

MrsChandlerBong - I'd like you to point ot the study that shows a link between mothers diet and personality issues in teh child - AFAIK neuroscientists are having a hard time proving ANY biological cause behind personality issues, including (much more obvious) structural and genetic defects. I studied neuroscience/neuropsychology at university, and worked as a research assistant at a cognitive neuropsychology lab - that kind of comment would get you laughed out - literally, people would think it was a joke!

(before anyone gets started, there has been evidence to suggest a correlation between biological factors and personality 'issues', but nothing conclusive to say that X causes Y. Personalit issues are generally deemed more related to environmental factors and attachment/upbringing, depending on severity and types of symptoms. As you would expect - having a direct, CLOSE relative with psychosis e.g. Schizophrenia raised the risk of THOSE symptoms in the patient, but other, behvioural issues can't yet be linked to structural/gentic problems, LET ALONE the ridiculousness of someone saying 1 person at liver in pregnancy, and that is the cause of all personality disorders). My dissertation has goen on to be developed by other staff and researchers in the field, and it was on Personality Disorders, in particular Borderline Personality Disorder, so I do have a bit of knowledge in this area.

"The powers that be" - there also used to be a limit as to how many eggs we should eat a week, but that has been lifted - I think people who doggedly follow arbitrary 'guidelines' are just as stupid as people who take unnecessary risks. Where on earth did common sense go?!

• another good point, the restriction on peanuts/peanut butter has also been lifted.

Mab I think your DH is out of line, frankly. Go eat that sushi!

He needs to relax and trust your judgment. I'd be nipping this in the bud now, otherwise in nine months it will be all, you shouldn't dress him in that, you shouldn't wash him like that, why are you using those nappies?

Use your common sense.

I've eaten I think "all" of the things on the banned list and I'll raise you a raw-prawn sarnie. Yes, pregnancy-brain can be so acute you may not realise that you have not cooked your prawns. But, I buy from a good supermarket, not from a asian street-market in the midday sun and I stay away from the most dangerous of all foodtypes: The August Wedding Buffet!

I am very wary of pre-packed salad leaves... love 'em, but they are the cause of some of the most "vicious" food poisoning outbreaks in British history. Oh and as someone else mentioned, am very wary of certain fruit/veg products depending on where they were produced.

Also, Amen elise - people eat the most dreadful crap and then get ants in their pants about coffee/runny eggs.

Ok so based on this NHS website I am going to apply the following "rules" for eating when pg (not pg yet but TTC):

• no unpasteurised cheese due to listeria risk
• no moulded cheese, even if pasteurised, due to listeria risk
• no pate of any sort due to listeria risk
• no rare or cured meats (unless I test positive for toxoplasmosis immunity)

• sushi (incl raw fish) is fine if from a reputable place as has to be frozen by law
• runny eggs - probably shouldn't to be on the safe side
• peanuts are fine
• cooked seafood is fine, just be extra careful about food hygiene
• salad is fine, just be extra careful about food hygiene

Mab my DH looks disapprovingly at me if I have a glass of wine - and we're only TTCing not even pg! if he comments on my diet all through pregnancy he will not be popular.

Nobody (pregnant or not) eats raw prawns though, surely?

I've eaten raw scallops and obviously raw oysters (although not whilst pregnant). But prawns?

kittyelise I agree in general but I draw a distinction between foods that just carry a higher risk of food poisoning such as shellfish - in which case just make sure you are extra careful about source and hygiene - and foods that can carry listeria or toxoplasmosis, which will not make you all that ill but can seriously damage a foetus - in which case I think it's worth avoiding.

wrt to sushi - it's the rice that would concern me most, rather than the fish.

Well after this I don't think I'll be eating any more pre-packed salad and I'm not even pregnant.

Scheherezadea Fri 01-Jul-11 14:18:11
- another good point, the restriction on peanuts/peanut butter has also been lifted.

Thank you!

Was beginning to think I was talking to myself.

jenai They were frozen, I de-frosted them, mixed in mayo and stuck them in a sarnie. All home-made goodness y'see. Approximately halfway through it occurred to me that tehre was something "wrong" with said prawns. As I say... pregnancy brain.

Tbh, most people eat those crappy enormous prawns farmed from the far-east which are so pumped full of antibiotics & irradiated before being shipped to Europe that they're miles away from something pulled out of a sewer pipe in the english channel.

The advice I have read is not to have too much caffeine, not avoid it altogether. Also, re alcohol, it is fine to have a couple of glasses a day apparently.

I can't help but (maybe stupidly) think that if these foods were so dangerous, humans should not consume them full stop. However, I still avoid. I have 1-2 cups of tea a day, I have had a (lovely) runny fried egg as I had forgotten I was pg, I had a medium steak by accident (I'd asked for well done) accompanied by stilton sauce (mw thinks its ok if its hot and who am I to argue?), I have had a few sips of DP's cider and - get ready to throw stuff at my head - Ive had a few tokes on a fag (gave up as soon as I found out I was pg).

I also suffered a mc with my last pregnancy, and had done everything right, as I had done when pg with my DS. I could put my mc down to the infrequent use of painkillers, the coke I drank, the extreme amounts of black mould in my old flat or could say its just one of those things. I'm trying to go with the latter, although everytime a painkiller passes my lips I worry.

Every woman who is pg is going to react to 'the rules' differently be it here on in France (where I'm sure you do get the odd woman who chain smokes and eats pate morning noon and night), some women stick steadfastly to said rules and have healthy babies, some unfortunately do not. Some women snort cocaine for breakfast lunch and tea and some have healthy babies, some unfortunately do not. We can only do what we feel is right for our pregnancy.

Good on you OP for sticking to what you feel is right!