Soft cheese and cured meats not giving them up

[hanny24]

So, my usual diet includes these foods anyway, since being pregnant I have wanted garlic roulade MORE. I know they say not to but what are the actual risks?, surely I'm not the only woman to ever eat 'the unthinkable' pregnancy foods...I mean think of the French women..oh I've also had a craving for beer too so I've had 2 beers in this time (up to 16 weeks) however one was non alcoholic...

I'm also a big fan of raw fish and sushi but I have checked with my local sushi place and I am fine to eat there still as the fish has been pre frozen (like most in the U.K.) but I'm really struggling with this cheese thing!!

Anything else I should not eat?

@boredmum18 you have just made my week saying you can get pasteurised Brie!! 😃

@orangekitkat13 it doesn't matter if brie is pasteurised, the advice is still to avoid eating it. As a PP said it is to do with the moisture content of the cheese being an ideal breeding ground for listeria. Although I had a brie sandwich the other day so I'm not judging!

OP the garlic roulade is fine if its pasteurised (almost 100% will be in UK) you can also freeze cured meats for four days before eating it too, which will kill the parasite (if present) that is where the risk lies. With the brie it is up to you to decide if the risk is enough a concern or not.

I’ve seen guidance that says roule is fine as long as it’s pasturised but like others have said some of the mould riped soft cheeses aren’t even if pasturised. www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/pregnancy/are-hard-cheeses-safe-to-eat-during-pregnancy/

There’s still loads of cheeses that are fine. Christmas will be a bit rubbish though as my parents always do amazing cheese boards and pate. I will do myself a baked camembert and have lots of Stilton so I don’t feel left out.

Why won’t the ‘pasteurised Brie is ok’ myth go away?

Sorry, hit post too soon.

I wholly support any woman’s right to make an informed choice about what she eats but when someone cares enough about the guidance to start a thread about it it’s very frustrating to see misinformation posted time and again.

I didn't realize meats like Parma ham etc weren't recommended - I had a 2 week holiday in Italy during my first pregnancy and I definitely didn't adhere to that rule.

I'd say do your own reading and make your own choices. For my 2nd pregnancy I had everything except pate (vit a) and had 1 glass wine a week. That was my choice, I wouldn't tell anyone else what to do just as I didn't want anyone else's opinion at the time.

@ThanksItHasPockets 100% agree about the misinformation - the guidance is clearly stated on the NHS website for all the different food types, yet all these myths prevail again and again. It's very annoying!

@thanksithaspockets
Because my midwife told me! Now I’ve read the nhs page it IS clear and I feel like I’ve taken a number of risks that I never would have taken if I had actually been less trusting and just read it myself. Annoyingly I read the page but I clearly had the midwife’s comments in my head which has informed my reading, rather than reading it for myself. I’m glad this has been pointed out on this thread as I wouldn’t make that choice again, as small as the risk is.

That’s really poor, Rowena. It’s not as if the advice has changed recently - it was certainly exactly the same when I was pregnant with DC1 six years ago.

I recommend reading the data around the risks yourself. I made the decision to eat certain things that are “banned” based on the evidence and abstained from others based on the evidence.
Given that the NHS pregancy advice doesn’t put any weight on your mental wellbeing and desires, ANY risk at all will mean women are told not to eat/drink it. You might be happy with that. I found infantilising personally.

It was at my booking appt- she said are you aware what you can eat and drink and I said ‘yes, you can’t have any of the good cheeses’ and she laughed and said oh no you can have the pasteurised cheeses... just not acceptable.

Off topic but still on the topic of poor advice- another midwife also recently told me that babies’ movements reduce in the weeks before labour because they run out of space. Luckily my addiction to mumsnet has taught me that this is NOT the case. But a few weeks ago I was worried about reduced movements and my DP said not to worry, remember the midwife said it’s normal for movements to reduce!!! I had to get him to read the NHS page on it.

With the cheese thing, my biggest reason for not giving it up is that the last 3 listeria outbreaks were caused by frozen veg, lettuce and fruit!

I'm fairly sure that you can eat cooked brie... Like baked. And yes, wine and cheese 24/7 would be living the dream 😁

I didn't have pate or brie at the MILs once. Response-you're pregnant aren't you!

The Emily Oster book is excellent for helping you weigh up the risks.

Personally, I am extremely risk averse. I am a worrier, likely to blame myself if something went wrong, even if it is unlikely to be causally linked to whatever I did. I also knew someone at school who had been born prem as a result of her mother contracting listeriosis while pregnant. The child had lifelong issues/disability as a result. So for me the risks of any dubious cheese were too high. I pretty much only had cooked pasteurised cheddar while pregnant (I appreciate that is not a 100% rational approach but it was what I was comfortable with).

I work in a food testing microbiology laboratory and these sorts of threads always make me want to scream at my phone!! It's not just parasites you have to worry about freezing it's listeria. Listeriosis may be uncommon but that's because most people don't have a weakened immune system and it won't affect them. You can eat something like smoked salmon (very common to have listeria in) and you won't be affected by the listeria because you have a healthy immune system.... But your baby has a undeveloped immune system and will die. You won't even know you ate anything bad. Listeria in food is not uncommon at all.. Uncooked ready to eat food is often a risk as well because of hygiene issues at production. Of course you can heat something really well and that will kill the listeria and you'll be fine. The NHS doesn't just recommend this stuff to be mean to pregnant women... There's a reason! Of course you can decide to ignore and maybe you'll be OK maybe you won't that's your choice.

@celeryeater the NHS website actually states smoked salmon is fine for pregnant women
www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/foods-to-avoid-pregnant/

I had a sneaky Google when I was pregnant to see if the French guidelines were any looser (I really, really missed pate). They're not. So I stuck with NHS advice and ignored everyone else. Not least the twit at work who told me that I couldn't eat honey!

My husband's cousin (who is French) contracted listeriosis from cheese when pregnant and was very ill. She went into early labour as a result and the baby was very premature, and both mother and baby were extremely ill. (Luckily baby is a strapping 24 year old man now! )
She made me promise not to touch any of the risky cheeses when pregnant and I must say after hearing her story it wasn't hard.

The NHS website advice is really bad.

www.cfs.gov.hk/english/multimedia/multimedia_pub/multime

We test these things and I can tell you it certainly is common. Google smoked salmon listeria and you will find lots of instances it has been found including one from August this year sainsbury's recalled smoked salmon

Listeria (full name Listeria monocytogenes) is a type of bacteria that can cause food poisoning when eaten. It can live and grow in a wide range of foods, in particular chilled ready-to-eat foods such as packaged sandwiches, butter, cooked sliced meats, smoked salmon, certain soft cheeses and pâté. Listeria is killed by pasteurisation and cooking, but these foods are a particular risk for harbouring the bug as processed or pre-cooked foods can become contaminated during the packaging process.

www.nhs.uk/news/older-people/elderly-take-listeria-gamble/

A nhs Web page that says smoked salmon is high risk for listeria.