Prawns...Do you or don't you?!

[sophiad]

Morning ladies!

I'm struggling with the not eating prawns, love them! Was wondering if anyone still ate them during pregnancy? I'm out for my Birthday at the weekend also and would love some grilled prawns! :(

I did in second pg. All fine.

I've been having them but really only hot. So salt and chilli king prawns from Chinese are a fave!

prawns are fine as long as they are cooked - it is raw seafood/shellfish you have to avoid

Yep. I've stuck with the NHS website advice on food as it seems sensible and has reasons for all the thinks it guides against. It says fully cooked shellfish fine. (Ditto cured meats, which has changed since my pregnancy last year, and was a pleasant surprise).

Prawns are fine.

Yeah I eat prawns still. Dont really know who would eat raw prawns??

When I had really bad nausea the only thing I could stomach for about a week was prawns!

Cooked prawns are fine. You can tell that they've been cooked because they're pink.

I can think of no circumstance or cuisine involving raw prawns

I think your fine to eat prawns if you're happy they've been stored correctly etc and they're not too old and manky. I eat them. But i'm am a bit more cautious about things like where they'd been kept etc- like if there were prawn sandwiches on a buffet I'd avoid them as they may have been sitting out a while.

I think food advice during pregnancy is (necessarily) overly-cautious. I asked for a medium entrecôte steak in France last week and the steak turned up almost mooing (still ate it). Prawns are fine.

Yes, I did, but on the other hand my dbil had some great advice to keep an IOU list of all the food/drink you have foregone during the pregnancy. You will therefore emerge with a lovely baby and a great IOU list: lots of red wine/chinese takaways . . . to be cashed in when and wherever you feel like it!

You are allowed to eat all cooked shellfish so enjoy

Why do prawns have such a bad reputation? Who'd eat them grey anyway?

Thanks ladies! That's what I thought, prawns get such a bad rep! I can't wait to have some nice ones at the weekend and not feel like I'm eating something wrong!

I'm pretty sure that when they say cooked prawns they mean hot rather than cold. I don't think anyone assumes we are stupid enough to eat raw prawns

Well I eat cold prawns. I buy them pre-cooked from Sainsbos. Reheating them is probs worse anyway.

I think they say they should be hot, that way you know they will be safe, especially in the case of eating them out. If you've bought them cold and kept them in the fridge then they should be fine. I think the not eating cold prawns is for instances like Paperclips says, when you don't know how long they've been hanging about.

If you are in control of how fresh they are then there shouldn't be any problems.

Personally I've never read cooked to mean hot. If they meant hot, I would have thought they'd say hot?

the guidance used to say 'cooked as part of a hot meal' rather than just cooked - dont know why it changed

On a bit of a side note, I went to a posh sushi place in new York and they had raw prawn sushi there. So apparently people do eat unappetizingly grey prawns. Not my cup of tea though.

Longtallsally what's wrong with red wine and Chinese takeaways?!

I had mixed seafood for lunch - prawns, squid and mussels. I bought them frozen, and reheated them myself so am not worried. I wouldn't order prawns or mussels in a restaurant though.

I'm sure cooked means pink and you can eat them hot or cold - I lived off prawn sandwiches from Boots last pg, only thing I could stomach for months!

I drank red wine and ate Chinese take away on occasion too!

Nothing wrong with them, but most people cut down on alcohol when pregnant. Rather than just forgo it, it was fun to see the list of "I owe myself a bottle of red wine" growing nicely to be cashed in, in future.

I cut out chinese takeaways with ds2, as ds1 had allergies , and I was advised to avoid peanuts - much chinese food is cooked in peanut oil. Again, it wasn't a great loss, especially as I popped them into my book, to present dh with, once ds2 had arrived.

My "what to eat when you're pregnant" book says that cooked prawns are fine.

I think cold cooked prawns are fine, but it then depends on how reliable the source is - how recently were they cooked, were they cooked through, how have they been stored. If they are piping hot you know that they are fully cooked and freshly cooked.

Can I just say that I miss salami.

nhs advice is that salami is ok:

Cold cured meats
Cold cured meats include salami, parma ham, chorizo and pepperoni. Some countries advise pregnant women to avoid eating cold cured meats or smoked fish as there is a small risk of these foods harbouring listeria, or the toxoplasma parasite that causes toxoplasmosis. Currently in the UK we don't advise pregnant women to avoid these products. However, if you are at all concerned, you might choose to avoid cured meats and smoked fish while you are pregnant.
The Food Standards Agency is reviewing its toxoplasmosis and listeria advice to vulnerable groups, including pregnant women, and we'll post the reviewed advice on this page as soon as it's available.