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

I eat sashimi all the time. Salmon and some other fish must be frozen to kill certain parasites. Even Nobu does this. I've certainly eased off on the tuna though.

My understanding was that even dicky sashimi won't harm the baby. I'm sticking with that, but I am avoiding the more esoteric stuff like squid and sea urchin.

I bake Camembert in the oven and have that with crusty bread. I've decided that because you usually have halloumi cooked, it must be OK.

And I have had the odd half of Guinness because it's good for the milk, apparently (I know that's not true).

QT you can get unpasteurised cheese here, although it's not as common as in, say, France. Waitrose do several types of specialty cheeses which aren't pasteurised but I think other supermarkets less so.

It isn't just the mould that's a problem, either, it's soft rind cheeses in general (so anything with a covering like the white bit of brie) as these soft cheeses are generally more likely to contain the potentially harmful bacteria. Also the risk with these cheeses is more than just food poisoning - if you get salmonella poisoning it will be miserable but only for you. Listeria from cheese carries a small risk of harming the baby too. I have no idea about stats, there was a very long thread on here a few weeks ago where people were quoting risks. I just like talking about cheese (even if currently limited to scoffing the strongest cheddar possible in industrial quantities - anyone up for a post-natal cheese eating thread ?).

I think I've got the bacterial facts right, if not I'm sure I will be corrected shortly!

iggypiggy - My midwife told me it was ok to eat pasturised brie... I haven't actually eaten any and I haven't done any more research on it... sorry if it's not accurate advice.

MumNWLondon are those the reasons why we're advised not to eat pate? Just because of the vit A and nothing to do with any nasty bacteria in it? It's just that botchilism (sp?) springs into my mind when I think of it for some reason.

alana i did some googling a while back and think i established that salmonella doesn't cross the placental barrier. listeriosis, however, can be really bad news for the baby.

i've been risking raw eggs this time (i think the salmonella risk is pretty small these days anyway), and have also had unpasteurised parmesan, but haven't risked it with the squishy cheeses.

If you are a soft cheese fan here is a lovely way of eating it cooked (recipe courtesy of Nigel Slater): get Camembert in one of those round wooden boxes, take off the paper and put it back in the box, prick it all over the top with a fork, cut a clove of garlic in half and rub it on the cheese, then pour a little white wine on top, replace the lid and cook at 200 for 30 mins. Dip bits of crusty bread in it.

oxymoronic, that's what I've always been told about pate, it's the vit A rather than any bacterial nasties they're worried about.

I craved brie for weeks when I was around 16 weeks. After doing loads of research into brie I decided to follow the American advice, that pasturised is ok. I combined this with some advice I found that the listeria risk was reduced when the cheese was a whole round, so I bought a cotswold brie that was whole and made with pasturised milk. I baked it and then ate only the melted cheese and none of the mould. It was delicious :-D