azda's parmesan cheese

[Stefka]

I always thought that Parmesan cheese was safe to eat in pregnancy and have been doing so. I just noticed on the back of Azda's Parmesan it says that it is not suitable for pregnant women I've been throwing it on the top of various bakes that I have been making these last few weeks!

Listeria cannot survive in parmesan cheese even though it's not unpasteurised it's too hard and matured for too long.

Proper cooking kills Listeria as well.

Enjoy your parmesan

Thank god for that - I am missing all the cheeses I can't eat loads and I want to make a bake for tea tonight

Don't worry. You'll be fine. Check out this article. The problem with cheese is the risk of listeria but, as the article points out, getting listeria from cheese is almost unheard of in this country. Especially from a supermarket cheese.

Places like France and Italy don't tell women that they can't eat cheese during pregnancy (at least I don't think they do...I could be wrong ).

Bottom line is, you'd know about it if you had listeria so chances are you're fine

lol at Azda

I meant not pasteurised (this cold has fried my brain today)

they have probably done this as it is unpasteurised, however i used to work in a specialist cheese shop....think neal's yard dairy type shop...and our advice was that hard cheese is ok whether past or not as the milk is effectively cooked as part of the process. mould ripened and blue are not ok whether past or not as it is the mould that can harbour other bacteria.

listeria is as already said, very rare, although we did have an irish mould ripened cheese with listeria in once.

cooked cheeses are all ok as well.

enjoy!

Well my bake is made now complete with Parmesan ! Lucky old French women - I told my DH that I want a cheese board when I get home from the hospital!

brie is now fine anyway as long as its made from past. milk! i thought i was being really naughty eating a brie and cranberry panini the other day until dh told me otherwise, then it didn't taste the same!!

Im with MTowers...i eat what ever i want incl (horror) blue cheese...if its from a supermarket especially is v. unlikely to give you listeria. This is my second pg and no problems...ds is defo unscathed by my diet during that pregnancy.

Plus dont forget MT the odd cheeky glass of wine too!

I would love to work in a specialist cheese shop yum!

I used to be a food microbiologist for one of the supermarkets and regularly visited cheese factories I also used to see all teh Listeria testing results so have a pretty good idea of whats dangerous and whats not.

I knwo the guidelines are there for a reason but I avoided nothing in pregnancy (well apart from alcohol but you know what I mean) I'm veggie so all the meat stuff never affected me but ate loads of cheese.

Ate what I wanted during pregnancy, runny cheeses, pate, blue steaks et al. Only thing I cut down on was coffee, for some reason, and also no alcohol.

I can eat brie????? Horray!!!!!!!!!!