What do you not eat in pg?

[strawberry]

Just wondering how strict you are about diet in pg. Also for those non-UK mners, what different advice do you get. Don't want a massive discussion on alcohol intake! Also will take liver pate and soft/blue cheese as a given (do our friends in France stick to this?)

Do you eat...
unpasteurised hard cheese (eg parmesan)
Undercooked steak
Pre-cooked chicken/turkey
partially cooked eggs
Shellfish
Calamari
shop bought sandwiches
Any others?

For the record, I have eaten most of these during pg.

The fish issue is a hard one for me to crack! I am usually veggie, but try to eat some fish when preganant. As many said omega3 is good for brain development! The problem is that mercury is pretty bad. So the trick is a fish that gives you good oils and no mercury. I have found some guidelines for american fishes, and I get the feeling the issues in UK will be different, but in case it is useful here is a link:
vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/admehg.html

My best compromise has been to eat no more than once a week....

unpasteurised hard cheese (eg parmesan) Probably
Undercooked steak Avoided (and I love it)
Pre-cooked chicken/turkey Probably
partially cooked eggs Think so
Shellfish I had prawns in eg M&S sandwiches
Calamari Don't think so
shop bought sandwiches Definitely
Any others? Avoided peanuts. I did eat some parma ham but not much (and felt guilty afterwards). Avoided liver, avoided lovely gooey cheese, had smoken salmon

Oh, the one thing I do avoid (and love) is sushi made with raw fish (i.e. tuna). As soon as baby is born, I'm going out for sushi and beer. yummmmmmmmmmm....

I still eat some sushi, but only if it's cooked or veggie.

uwila, i'd read that if you get sushi in the UK from a place like M&S it's a pretty safe bet that the fish will have been frozen en route which kills of the relevant bugs. not sure about the 'fresh' sushi you'd get from a good japanese restaurant though

Popyscal, dont see a prob with scampi as its deep fried

probably true. But, better to be safe than sorry. It is after all raw fish. The only raw one I actually like is the tuna. So, I can manage to get by witout it. It will give me something to look forward to with my post preggers night out.

Since I had my dd in july I have actually binged on everything I couldnt eat before, am now sick of the stuff!!!!!

You certainly get different official advice from different sources. I was particularly interested to hear what others actually avoided. If you stuck to all the official advice you would have a quite limited diet IMO.

Asked midwife yesterday. She bascially said avoid everything on the list! When I specifically asked about parmaesan she said oh yes fine. But then went on to list types of cheese to avoid including unpasteurised.

I went home and made a massive bowl of carbonara although I cooked the parmesan in the sauce! Yum!

Thought I would revive this thread to air my confusion about feta! Are you allowed to eat this or not? A list I got from the Centre for Pregnancy Nutrition includes it in the safe cheeses, but I've seen several websites where it's listed as unsafe. I eat quite a lot of it - a cheap supermarket feta-style cheese made from cows' milk rather than the real thing - I also assume it's pasteurised. I don't eat it cold though - always cooked in some variety. I had it today cut into little cubes, mixed with pasta and mushrooms and heated for 10ish mins so that the cubes were melting - is that enough heating to kill any listeria?

p.s. went by the 'it's safe' guidelines up to now but have just discovered a reference to feta as unsafe, did a panic search and discovered all these websites. Can't help being paranoid...

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Unpasteurised hard cheese is absolutely safe - listeria needs moisture to grow and there isn't enough of it in hard cheese.
I would eat feta and do eat feta. The 'risk' is entirely theoretical.
Anything thoroughly cooked until it is hot is OK re listeria.
Listeria poisoning is incredibly rare, btw.

OK, so faced with a pasteurised but very runny brie-ish type cheese, what is the correct response?

bakedpotato, my personal response would be to bake/grill it thoroughly (in a pasta bake, on a pizza or something) - until it was toasted/bubbling - if I really wanted it. And I wouldn't eat the mould. Brie-style cheeses have never been my thing, so that's one type of cheese I don't have problems with...
Thanks for feta responses.

Mould-ripened cheeses are considered a no-no, as they are more likely to contain listeria. IT's the mould-ripened nature of the cheese (ie rind) not the softness that's the probem.

(more welcome!) (must stop this habit of posting and then remembering there was still something I wanted to write )

dont eat brie, even pastuerized as the crust on top is " mould ripened" which means it can still harbour listeria, sorry! Feta I beleive is not safe either.

stick with pasteurised feta from a reputable supermarket and you will give yourself extra confidence in the product.

Does this mean I could have eaten goats cheese?

I think feta is made from goats or sheeps milk, mozzarella is actually safe if anyone is worried about that btw.