Another "I'm pregnant and have a cat post", but I've not seen this aspect mentioned previously...
Our cat loves the kitchen counter. We find her on there multiple times a day and have to shoo her off. We do try to clean the worktops and induction hob regularly, but it's very hard to keep up (and my husband, who to his credit does most of the cooking, unfortunately naturally takes a "well it looks clean" approach to cleaning).
I'm suddenly a lot more mindful of this in pregnancy, as I'm worried she's treading dirty paws around the side and that there is therefore a (very small) risk of toxoplasmosis / generally that it's an unhhygeinic thing I don't want to encourage!
I have two questions:
-
Anyone have any advice on how to stop her continuing to clamber all over the worktops/ have a little nap on the hob, or do I just have to keep on top of the cleaning?!
-
In the unlikely case that we have prepared food on a worktop that we haven't kept on top of, would cooking this food guarantee that it kills any of the toxoplasmosis-causing oocysts? I've tried looking this one up and I know cooking meat kills them but can't work out if the oocysts in cat litter would be the same type, and I'm slightly thrown by instructions to "thoroughly wash soiled veg before cooking it" as that would seem to imply that cooking may not do the job!
Essentially - I've not seen people mention this previously and I don't know if it's because others' cats actually behave/ others are much better at keeping on top of cleaning than us / it just isn't a risk at all!