Craziest food you have been told to avoid...?!

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My friend works in a cafe where a pregnant woman came in and asked for an egg and cress sandwich, but with no cress (you thought I was going to say no egg, right?) - because pregnant women are not allowed to eat shoots and sprouting things!
I can't find any mention of this on the FSA or NHS websites, and being pregnant myself I'm paranoid enough to check this out!
Not that cress is a major part of my diet, but anyone else ever heard this, or anything else similarly bonkers?

Perhaps I could stretch the 'no cress' rule to include all fruit and vegetables so I could live on my preferred diet of chocolate and ice cream!

I actually laughed out loud when I got told to avoid Parma ham.

I honestly told the MW that I would avoid it but if I found myself in that aisle of the supermarket I would buy it and eat it

Makes sense about the salads from Marks & Spencer though. They are terrible for food poisoning, those bagged salads. I had my one and only bout of food poisoning from one of those and have always washed salads really carefully ever since.

Hah! I just got in from dinner (on lush minibreak thingy with DH in Boston, our first holiday since the honeymoon 2 years ago - JOY!) and I had at LEAST 3 swallows of his beer and maybe FOUR sips of wine and I am giggling like a drunkard!

Ahem. Am 23 wks and ohgod, here in America you get frowned on for ANY caffiene (I drink green tea when no one is watching, and decaf if someone is) and I think I'd probably get locked up for crimes against the unborn if they'd seen me tucking into his tasty icewine with the sorbet.... Yeah, they like scaring you stupid over here, it's another way to keep you in line. I'm avoiding raw fish (I miss sushi and I BET Japanese women eat it!), unpasteurized cheese, raw eggs - and that's about it. In fairness, I couldn't face any caffeine or alcohol (even on someone's breath, ugh!) during my first trimester. So I was pretty awesomely well behaved then.

One day around 15 weeks I thought "Bugger it, the spawn may never be an Olympic athlete or get into Harvard, but I need a cup of tea NOW!" - and I haven't looked back! Moderation is the thing, right? Moderation.

I agree MrsHappy I thought if eggs have the lion mark then they were salmonella free but I think it's just a precaution like everything. You can't exactly do trials on pregnant women, how many volunteers would they have really!?!

I only eat scrambled eggs as I can't stand hard boiled/fried/poached eggs. I do give slightly runny eggs to my 2 year old, but feel guilty every time! I don't want to put him off eggs and I really don't like them hard

Sabie- shop bought coleslaw is fine, the only coleslaw to avoid is if it has homemade mayonnaise due to raw eggs.

Alannabanana- I rarely eat pate but since my ms has decreased I am really craving it most days! That and cough candy, bizarre.

My gynae told me that raw fish was ok, liver fine every couple of weeks but no rare and uncooked meats. It's all so confusing, especially with the whole "well if you're not sure, best to be safe" attitude.This is in Germany.

Is anyone else mentally planning a post-pregnancy feast? Mine starts with champagne and oysters, or maybe some melon and parma ham, goes on to something with very rare beef (dh suggested Tounedos Rossini as that has foi gras in it too) with a very nice full bodied red wine, desert will be chocolate mousse (have to be careful because of the uncooked eggs right now) and I will finish with a cheese board where everything is blue, runny or both and a glass of port.

I know that in reality we will probably be too busy looking after the baby to cook that for months, if not years, but surely I can dream. Anyone else?

When I pregnant last time I was told no mr. whippy type ice cream or McDonalds shakes because of listeria in case the machine isn't washed properly. So that could be the soft serve ice cream helenwombat? Hasn't been mentioned this time but morning sickness has been lingering so not really felt like a thick shake, there's still time though

This is an interesting article

toptrump
My dh worked for a chain of sandwich shops and their health and safety guy had a thing about cress as well. It's something to do with the way it's grown apparently???? So there is something in it... not sure what the actual risk is though.
Actually the whole salad thing is ridiculous, it's put me right off eating the stuff in the bags since I found out that they wash it in bleach/sterilising fluid stuff before they bag it up. They also do this in sandwich factories with all lettuce/leaves... lovely!

Very interesting! So much is just health professionals covering their backs just in case. Maybe I will have a soft boiled egg easter Sunday

This article in the Guardian is also v. interesting here (link thanks to ginhag

do you want to hear something disgusting??
warning...you might not!

i've been craving peanut butter like mad with this pg, but obviously been trying not to overdo it for obvious reasons. then i saw this article on aol news homepage called something like 'whats really in your food', and apparently peanut butter contains something like 2% maggots!! not sure how the buggers get in there but apparently food standards people know about it but as long as the maggot content doesn't go above a certain amount they turn a blind eye! needless to say my peanut butter craving has waned rather!
if i can find the article i'll try to link, but how gross!!!

Quiche by a woman in a cafe who told me that raw eggs were bad for you in pregnancy. I replied - "Oh I didn't realise, may I have my quiche cooked then please?"

I knew about the MrWhippy icecream, but didn't occur to me about McD's shakes (had one a couple of weeks ago, was craving one for days!)

Before i found out i was pg with DD, i had had a wild night out that ended in sambuca shots, felt so ill for a week (convinced it was due to hangover) and all i could eat for days is homemade choc mousse (raw eggs) DD is fine, was a bit worried she would come out pickled.....

I was told by an independent midwife not too worry about runny egg yolks, just ensure the egg white is solid and that you brought supermarket eggs that are vaccinated and have the lion mark (as meantioned above). She said the advice was out of date!

I hadn't heard about McDonalds milkshakes but I am still going to drink them if I fancy one.
I only like peanut M&Ms and only just thought about the peanut issue when I read this post. Thought I read somewhere that you should only avoid peanuts now if you have a direct family member who has an allergy.

The peanut thing has now been scrapped due to lack of evidence linking it to allergy development.

If i didnt eat any pre-prepared food I would probably starve so good job I'm not Australian.

I have scrapped oysters (feel that's just asking for trouble- feels like the danger zone somehow) and cut down booze to 3 glasses a week (usually less)but apart from that it's business as usual.

Have had food poisoning twice in my life- both times from cooked chicken. Never from sushi, never from cheese, in fact never from anything on the "do not eat when pregnant" list

I dont drink a lot of coffee anyway, but have one if I fancy it (and Starbucks is so weak it probably doesnt even count). Still drinking builder's tea.

I am eating more or less as normal. I never gave up coffee, but figure that as I only have instant it is not as bad as the real thing. I drink one quarter of a small glass of wine twice a week. I eat ham, have eaten some blue cheese, panicked myself into a fit because I ate pate before i knew I was pregnant so i do avoid pate. Today though I am eating a pret a manger tapas salad and just looked up the nutritional guidelines for a calorie count and it said 'not suitable for pregnant women'. Not sure why... the mozzaerella? The ham? The salad? truth is, I got so sick of trying to keep it straight in my head that I decided to avoid the obvious but otherwise be relaxed.

Craziest food I was told to avoid? Well, there was the woman on the train who told me off for eating -wait for it - VEGETARIAN sushi. (No fish in that). And there was the woman who when I went to have a tiny sip of DH's wine at a party physically PUSHED it out of my way, thus causing the glass to go flying across the room and smash. That annoyed me actually.

I am SO looking forward to the post-birth wine fest though.

Half way through me breastfeeding my son they changed the guidelines from not eating peanuts to it being fine. I actually don't like peanuts but am partial to a snickers occasionally so that was good news!

Mpuppykin - i would have threatened her with police action for assaulting a pg woman Honstly though i wonder about some people

Too silly really. Whenever I get really anxious about what I ought to be avoiding, DH just reminds me that 30 years ago everyone drank/ate/smoked through their pregnancies and most people turned out Just Fine.

The avoiding of cress and sprouts though is one I had never heard before.

I had an interesting conversation with someone last week who told me that the advice on drinking and preganacy changed between her two pregnancies (her sons are in their late 20's)... so she drank for one - and not for the other.. whilst she points out that she never got drunk and didn't drink every night 'because we didn't do that back then' - she also says that the only difference she can see between her sons is that one is more laid back than the other (the older one) - they are academically both equal - and very highly academic..

The laid back thing - obviously may be unrelated to alcohol tho

I do realise that this is not evidence in favour of booze during pregnancy!

cinnamon I'm afraid you've contradicted yourself there within one post! You start off by saying lion eggs are fine (vaccinated), then further down in the same post you say that homemade mayo isn't fine due to eggs...

To whomever was worried about sushi, I've eaten it regularly - my little boy (24 weeks) doesn't seem to mind. The guidelines here (The Netherlands) say it's fine.

Oddest one I've heard (of late) was that Greek yoghurt was off the list. Wtf? Have eaten it almost daily for 2 years.

I forgot about soft ice-cream until sat outside KFC on saturday with a mouthful of M&M sprinkled Mr. Whippy type stuff. Nom nom.

MrPuppy That's just plain fucking RUDE! (the whine woman)

I had a massive craving for sushi, but denied myself until I read that sushi is fine as its actually been cooked first. Apparently its Sashimi which is all raw. I didnt really understand it but I did munch on some sushi later!

I ate peanut butter because I loved it then at the end of my pg they changed the guidelines on it, so felt very smug in the face of those work colleagues who'd delighted in telling me off.

LittleWhite Wolf - some sushi has raw fish in, other sushi has cooked fish in ....... do not think it is safe to say that all sushi is ok because it's not........... if it has raw fish in, you are meant to avoid it.

I eat sashimi. It's fine.