"Are you allowed to eat that?"-weird food advice you've received when pregnant

[ChickenMe]

Hi

I've noticed that people love to tell us pregnant ladies what we can and can't do and no more so than when it comes to my favourite subject, food.

MIL, soon after being told I was expecting, exclaimed in a panic "eggs! You mustnt eat eggs!". Conversely she says it's fine to drink booze "so long as you don't get really drunk". Lol.

Upon mentioning tuna, prawns, fish, seafood in general Ive had "are you allowed that?" from several people. Poor condemned fish!

The funniest one was chatting to a woman at work and she says "grapefruit" in a rather stern way. Apparently it's not allowed.

I find it amusing that the above proscribed foods are all pretty healthy yet no one would blink an eye lid if I were to inhale Haribo or mainline Fanta for nine months (just don't eat eggs).

What ridiculous or hilarious food advice have you received from anxious well wishers?

Some one pretty much ran over and knocked some raspberries out of my hand and said they cause vaginal bleeding and cause miscarriage!

Lol butternut what the hell?! I love raspberries

A barmaid asked if I should be drinking 'that' when I asked for a tonic water with lemon, without gin or vodka or anything!

Me too!! I eat loads but even though I know it is bollocks she has planted an irrational seed of doubt in my mind!

Gosh how interfering Lou. Yes how can fruit be bad? But I feel the same about the grapefruit. A tiny voice in my head says "oh shit". Tsk.

Mozzarella because it's soft cheese. I just did a massive eye roll.

Butternut, whilst they were wrong I think I know where they got that idea from; raspberry leaf tea was traditionally used in early pregnancy (first 3months) to try to "abort" an unwanted baby. The Raspberry's themselves are not a problem.

I thought it was probably something to do with the tea. I have also been warned not to eat pineapple for the same reason.

Gosh all these evil fruits. Yes I was given a look for eating mozzarella too, just remembered. It was that type of mozzarella that falls apart easily so it must have set alarm bells ringing somewhere!!

She said the quinine in the tonic water after I asked her why. My friend told her to shut up ha!

not one specific foodstuff, but DH has taken to snatching away anything I get out of the fridge to check the use by dates. sigh because, you know, same day date smoked ham is riddled with parasites...

Go easy on the oily fish as the foetal brain will take it up at a highter rate than an adult brain, so more likely to get too much of the pollutants:
www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/fish-shellfish.aspx#pregnancyandchildren

Laughing at the deadly raspberries! I have a friend who wouldn't eat yogurt when pregnant as 'it has bacteria in'.

Lou, you should have kicked her up the butt then blamed it on a massive leg cramp.

'Oh I'm so sorry, you can get terrible leg cramps in pregnancy. It was just a really bad spasm. Hey, you know what's meant to help that...?'

I had a friend who asked if I was going to stop eating chocolate, because of the caffeine. I told her it really wasn't wise to try and separate a pregnant woman from her chocolate......

I went to a Thai with my boss. The whole menu was completely off limits apparently as I wasn't allowed peanuts or prawns.

I had both.

My DP who is normally VERY relaxed about use by/best before dates preferring to go by sight and smell suggested I don't eat the cheesecake dated a week earlier and ate it himself (plus his own - two pots of cheesecake) instead. What a darling

The peanuts thing was official advice when I had my two but they changed it a few years ago. I didn't eat peanuts when pregnant becasue we were told that if there was a history of allergies in the family the child was more liikely to develop nut allergy if they were repeatedly exposed to the protein in the womb. Turned out to be a load of tosh but hey, better safe than sorry until they were sure!

In fairness it was as recently as 8 years ago that the advice was a very strong "avoid peanuts"

I have been told shop bought sandwiches are dangerous as well!!

Not just pregnancy but breastfeeding too. When staying with my DH's gran abroad I was not allowed any green veggies as it was thought to bloat the baby and make him gassy! Note that he's never shown any sign of intolerance to these things when I've eaten them in the past - but any time the baby cried it was chalked up to that!

I had one can of Pepsi everyday at work, lasted me all day, this prompted a colleague to look disapprovingly and tell me my baby would be born addicted!

I went for a posh brunch with a heavily pregnant friend and we both ordered poached eggs. Waitress asked if friend wanted her eggs cooked until firm, seeing as she was pregnant. Friend said no and then felt like a terrible mother!

Mamushka that one isn't so daft. What you eat does go across to your milk. I raised an eyebrow when FIL advised me to avoid cabbage and orange juice when bf-ing. He was right. Both gave dd awful colic. His wife bf three children so I guess he'd learnt along the way.

As for eggs and prawns, it's a judgement call isn't it. I eat both at home, but when out you don't know whether the eggs are lion marked, or how fresh the prawns are. Same with super market sandwiches. It's not weird advice.

In the last 24 hours alone from MIL (who's visiting) I've had:

Philadelphia
Cheddar cheese (because it's in wax....?)
Taramasalata
Nuts
Eggs

Le sigh.....