What ways have you found to eat foods 'not allowed' in pregnancy?

[Oxymoronic]

It's typical that as soon as you find out your pregnant everything that's on the list of 'what not to eat' suddenly becomes a craving!

I needed danish blue cheese and stilton, and made stilton and broccoli soup, and toasted the blue cheese on top of french bread The MW said it was fine to have them like this as the cooking kills off the nasties.

I'd be esp interested if anyone's thought of a way to eat pate safely, the thoughts of butter and pate on toast are driving me mad

Haven't found a way of eating pate safely but then again I haven't tried as I normally don't like it. Just thought I would tell you that you CAN get pasturised danish blue cheese and stilton which is OK to eat, but you'll have to look around for it. Sorry I can give any better advice of where you can find it, I just know that it does exists.

You can't eat pate because of the high vitamin A levels (I think), and I don't think you can change that, but I used to buy mushroom pate and pretend...

I once had a recipe that was for a sort of coq au vin but you put slices of pate de foie gras on top of the chicken for the last half hour of cooking. Sorry that's a bit vague, presumably normal pate would work as well. The problem is having to cook it for so long that it is bubbling hot all the way through will probably also make it melt away.

And it's not just the food poisoning risk with pate, liver is high in the retinol form of vitamin A which is risky to the baby's sight I think. I would imagine you have to eat alot / regularly rather than have a one-off bit of pate but worth remembering.

If goats cheese is something else you like it's delicious stirred into a tomato and basil sauce for pasta (pref with some dried chillis too) and cooked properly i.e. a few minutes bubbling again.

Just had lunch and this is making me feel really hungry again

Sorry cross post Omicron

QT, I've been told it's quite safe to eat sushi in the UK. I've eaten tons this pregnancy and so far dd looking very healthy!

As for pate... if you can find one that's not made with liver... I guess that would be the way round it. Are rillettes made with liver?

If it's any help QT, Japanese pregnancy sites tend to recommend lots of sushi for while pregnant, the fresher the better!

Also, unless they're banging live salmon over the head round the back of the shop, it must have been frozen in transit from the salmon farm/fishery to the shop - I'm pretty sure that it has to be in iceboxes to transport it legally

I don't know HeadFairy, I think rillettes are mainly just pork meat (and fat!) but not sure if they contain any liver. Eat them in France but have never even seen here.

That's the closest I can think of to pate alana... haven't had it in years, would it make a good substitute?

Now what about booze?

tbh.....i've never really paid much attention to them.. i mean.... i HAVE in a sort of not wanting to harm the baby sort of way, but sometimes I forget and think after the event...."oh bugger...i wasn't supposed to eat that was i"
This pg i've been QUITE good and only forgotten a couple of times....
and now i'm 12 wks i'm being v lax...
HOWEVER as a caveat i would say i don't eat stuff that they say is DEFINITELY bad for you (like marlin etc etc)
(but i did forget for pate a few times but i agree with alana prob need to eat quite a lot to really worry about it)

sorry for rambling...basically i'm trying to say i suppose it depends on the type of person you are. I'm not going to lose sleep over things like this - what on earth did people do 30 yrs ago??

mm stilton... [slavering emoticon]

To be honest, apart from the liver one I'm usually a bit lax with most of these rules. I love rare meat and I'm not worrying too much about cooking it until it's dried and horrible, roast lamb has to be pink!

I've also eaten blue cheese and other banned substances too, but I do know the liver (ie vit A) can cause eye defects, so I've avoided. I'm not a massive pate fan though so it's not been hard.

Yes now craving a large glass of wine with the possibility of another. I only have about 7 weeks to go and am now spending more time planning the post-deliver snacks that DH can bring in for me than worrying about hospital bag . They mainly revolve around cheese, pate and wine.

Not sure rillettes would do instead of pate cos the texture's so different.

mmm, yes, I see what you mean, pate really should be rather smooth and creamy.

I've been having the odd glass of wine since 12 weeks and really appreciate it! My lovely friend brought a bottle of champers in to the hospital when she came in to see me after I'd had ds (was stuck in for three days post cs) and that was really lovely. We did have a terrible case of the giggles though as we coughed to disguise (badly) the sound of the cork popping! It tasted like nectar!

Vallmo I might be wrong on this... but I remember reading that the problem with cheese is not just whether it is pasturized or not - it is to do with the mold.

So pasturised brie is not actually ok... for example.. The only way to eat it is cooked.

Will try to find info/ link!

QTpie - AS long as the eggs have the lion mark on them then they are more then likely ok to eat. And as most shops/supermarkets only sell eggs that have the lion mark on them, it should be safe enough.

There was a thread on here a little while ago about it, and it had lots of links, but can't seem to find it atm.

I enjoyed a runny egg with bacon and sausages thisd morning - yummy!!!

Here is the thread about the Lion Mark:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk?topicid=49&threadid=340759&stamp=070617130951

I think you're right about the blue cheese thing Iggypiggy, it's the mould they're concerned about. It's not usually a problem in places like France as they eat more blue cheese anyway, so they have a natural resistance to the bacteria used to create the blue bit in the cheese.

All cheese sold in the UK is pasteurised, if it's sold in a proper shop, if it's home made then it possibly won't be, but it can't be sold in the UK if it's not pasteurised (if it is then the Food Standards Agency can take action I think)

Marks & Spencers sushi has no raw fish... obviously not as good as real thing but can be good subsitute.

HeadFairy you can definielty buy non-pasteurised cheese in the UK at lost of supermarkets, as bought some by mistake form Waitrose the other day.

My understanding is Spanish & Italian cheese tends to be pasteurised but not French or English

Really Stokey? I was convinced the EU regulations state that all cheese sold in the EU must be pasteurised. My MIL lives in Cyprus and she has a neighbour who makes her own (delicious) haloumi and sells it to her neighbours, and has been told she can't any more now Cyprus is in the EU as it's not pasteurised.

Even with liver, and vit A, its ok in real moderation - if you need a small taste of it, thats ok, you'd have to eat it very regularly in reasonable quantity for it to be a problem. They used to recommend it in pregnancy because of the iron, and some people probably really overdid it.

Eggs the risk is salmonella but much lower risk if lion mark...