what can u eat in pregnancy?

[misdee]

seems like everything i like and crave is on the foods to avoid list.

my sister keeps telling me i cant ghave soft whip ice cream from the ice cream van, i can have salads from salad bars etc etc. we are all going to harvester at the end of the month and i dont fancy a lecture if i go for a salad. please someone tell me they are ok.

cant have salads even. i was craving one the other day as i had a craving for pizza huts bacon bits but she told me i couldnt.

i buy ready-to-eat salad and give it a wash at home. Mr Whippys are out and prawns (I miss prawn sandwiches and prawn vindaloo). Tuna is limited to 2X a week. I was told no alcohol but I have a few glasses of wine a week. Coffee should also be limited so I switched to decaf, dont know if it is any better. Blue cheese is out, and goats cheese which is a bummer. This advice seems to vary from country to country so I take it with a pinch of salt.

My understanding is that salads, like all fruit and veg need to be washed, but that's it. My God, there are far worse things we can eat.

That said, we always call stuff from salad bars "cough salad" on the basis that it can sit there for hours with people, ahem, coughing on it.....
(I still eat it though!)

OMG i forgot about prawns!!
please add to this list as I was thinking this today

no alcohol (or very little)
reduce caffeine
no soft cheese or blue cheese
no pate
no homemade mayo (raw eggs) - what about meringue??
no unwashed salad
very little tuna
no my whippy

what else!!?

that puts me off every time, that and kids picking bits out with their fingers (they all pick their noses dont they?)

no nuts esp for us misdee, as we both have eczema in the family. Dh bought me a Snickers, I love them, but it will be stuck in the fridge till November .

No undercooked meat
No liver

why no mr whippy?
Am I missing something?
LOL oops
you can eat pasteurised goats cheese, but then agin whats the point..
no pate...
you can eat meringue as its cooked. normal mayo is fine as it's pasteurised...
I never eat ready to eat salad as it is washed in that many chemicals anyway...
Soft eggs were my bugbear and I did stray on the odd accasion...

listeria, I think, in MR whippy

On a positive note, chocolate is not banned

in fact I do recall a study (honest, not making this up) that said that mums who ate chocolate while pg had less stressed kids!

and here is the link: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3604275.stm

if the bbc has it on it must be true (well maybe not post hutton, but you get the idea)

i didn't know about the salad one or the goats cheese - had a yummy chicken and goats cheese salad at pizza express last week thinking i was being healthy!
so now mayo is ok! that's good. what about mayo on things in good restaurants - presumably that will be 'home-made' so that's no good.
and the only problem with the chocolate is that it's making me feel ill! not fair! all i want at the moment is savoury foods!

Mayo out of jars is fine - the problem with homemade mayo is the raw eggs. Depends what kind of restaurant you're in I suppose, downmarket and they're probably using jars!

I'm getting used to the nuts thing - I have eczema, asthma, hayfever and a walnut-pecan allergy. So I basically haven't eaten a nut since I got pregnant with dd 2 3/4 years ago! Have been breastfeeding her till three days ago, and now pregnant again, so still no nice peanut butter for me. Though frankly eating anything at all is a bit of a challenge at the moment, what with 24 hour sickness, noticed my trousers are getting looser this morning. Roll on 3 months when I can start getting fatter instead of thinner.

No raw eggs. They sugest no runny ones either but I've ignored that.
No rare meat but I've ignored that too. Life's too short to eat well done beef.
No unpasteurised soft or goats cheese or pate - pasteurised versions of either are fine, so vacuum packed pates, jars of meat paste etc will be OK.
No blue cheese.
No Mr Whippy ice cream (but most ice cream is fine).
All these are because of risk of either listeria of toxoplasmosis so your risks will be much lower if you buy stuff from good sources

No liver - risk of too much vitamin A (retinol) poisoning foetus - so therefore no liver pate whether pasteurised or not.

Limit:
Tuna (to two fresh steaks of three cans a week, which is a lot IMO)
Caffeine (coffee to 3 a day and tea to 6 a d ay I think)
Alcohol (to one or to units, once or twice a week).

Seafood is for the food poisoning risk again so I'd avoid anything raw (oysters etc) and the didgier shellfish like mussels but it hasn't stopped me eating prawns. I've never been ill from a prawn.

Fruit, veg and salad should be washed but you should be eating lots.

The only nuts to avoid - unless you have a specific nut allergy risk - are peanuts, and these only if you have a family history of eczema, asthma etc.

I've heard that you're not meant to eat cold cuts - ham etc - but I haven't paid any attention to that one. I think with that kind of buffet food you just have to use your common sense about how long it's been sitting about, how fresh it looks etc.

Mind you, the sky won't fall in if you break the rules. I never knew about prawns or coffee during my first pregnancy, and having produced one chirpy babe ignored those rules firmly in my second.

but i lvoe the salad bar there!! surely one wont do any harm

i do avoid nuts as ther is asthma, ezcema and hayfever in trhe family (dd1 has all three, dd2 has ezcema and hayfever), plsu they have various allergies nayway. i avoided ll nuts with them, so maybe its not gonna make much difference anyway.

I only like meat well cooked, and hate liver, so its given me a good excuse not to cook it for dh.

why are prawns out?

dh is also saying that i will more than likely throw it up anyway so they'll be no problem. lovely eh!

And Liver is fine as long as you don't go mad - my midwife told me and I had it a couple of times with DD. The problem came from a woman who craved it and had it for everymeal and the vitamin A caused her daughter retina damage.

Could not live without smoked salmon or prawns and even had lobster when was pregant with DD!!

Here's the "official" advice here

Last pregnancy my midwife told me in addition to this to be careful with margarine. Apparantly some margarines have a lot of vitamin A added, so are almost the equivalent of eating liver!

On the plus side she said that with rare beef - if you have always eaten rare beef then you're more than likely already immune to toxoplasmosis. However obviously still a risk in case you are not.

Bunny2 - you should be able to have your prawn vindaloo, once they are cooked through and piping hot they are fine !
I'm only avoiding the usual cheeses, pate, raw meats, liver etc. I'm still getting my lunch-time sambos from the deli bar ! I think if the place looks clean and hygenic and the food is chilled it should be fine.

Sponge

you should avoid cold meats for toxoplasmosis risk again, but only dry cured ones, like salami or parma ham, cooked ham is fine, and if you have them in a toasted sandwich they're all ok because then they're cooked.

Apparently cold chicken is also risky I think for listeria, especially in buffets.

I read somewhere that goats cheese and brie should be avoided even if pasteurised, but they're ok if you cook them??? CAn't remember where now.

BigBird, you have mad me very happy!! An Indian takeaway for me tonight then

OK Bunny2 - i'll come clean and confess...!!
It is not my tip at all but one from Aloha from this thread : Tuna - Didn't know it was another pregnancy NO GO AREA (last post 8th June on pregnancy thread). This topic is also worth a read - some good advice there !

I'll try to do a link.....

Tuna - Didn't know it was another pregnancy NO GO AREA

well Im still in your debt, looking forward to my vindaloo.

What about sweeteners, aspartame, sacharin etc in squash and things? I've had a look on the internet and found opinions ranging from "of course its all right, stop making a fuss woman" to "your child will have 3 heads if a sweetener passes your lips". Does anyone know?