Foods to avoid during pregnancy - how did you cope - share your tips with PG tips Decaf and you could win £250 NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

We all know that there's lots of advice out there about what food and drink (and ingredients in food and drink) to avoid during pregnancy.

For the Mumsnet guide to this please click here.

The team at PG tips Decaf say "With PG tips decaf, you can still enjoy the splendid luxury and taste of a nice cuppa, without having to think about the caffeine as it contains less than 10mg per cup - available in packs of 40, 80 or 160."

PG tips Decaff would love to know how, when you are pregnant, you managed to find substitutes for the foods and ingredients you were avoiding.

For example: did you use a strong pasteurised cheese in place of Stilton on a salad, did you try sparkling fruity water in place of wine etc?

Decaff tea and coffee is perhaps an easy one: do share what you did - they'd also love to know if you tried their tea what you thought!

Please share your tips and stories relating to the food changes made to your diet when you were pregnant on this thread - everyone who does will be entered into a prize draw where one lucky MNer will win a £250 voucher for the store of their choice.

thanks and good luck

MNHQ

i just gave up things that made me queasy, it changed constantly, i dont drink coffee and only a few cups of tea, but i was jut so glad to be pregnant and for things to be going well that i even had a wee glass of wine or two once i got further on and so what!, and i still had sugar in my tea, and i still ate mostly what i always done, i dont like pate or uncooked eggs and i love my pasta and normal food, women need to be allowed to enjoy the pregnancy as when the wee one arrives its a very stressful and demanding time, there are far too may pressures for many pregnant ladies to feel they are failing even before they have give birth, listen to your body

I did not eat runny eggs or unpasteurised cheeses, I didn't substitute them with anything, I just had to wait until I had given birth! I had a sample of PG tips decaff tea and once I had tried it I really liked it, I still drink it now as I prefer to avoid caffeine. I did have sparkling drinks as a treat on a Saturday night instead of wine, things like Appletise/Shloer.

I am so sorry, but tea and coffee were two things I coudn't touch - certainly not with milk, anyway. I liked lots of citrus things and anything acidic - oranges, beetroots, apples.

Even thinking about the nausea makes me heave now!

I couldn't stomach tea or coffee during morning sickness stage - I did drink tea and decaff coffee after this. Just normal tea as I haven't found a decaf tea I like yet. Obviously gave up alcohol! Had a craving for Slush Puppies!!

I also couldn't eat potatoes the whole time - they tasted earthy...yuck.

I found it easy in that, pretty much all of the foods I'm supposed to avoid, I didn't really eat anyway. I don't like alcohol so didn't drink it anyway. Nor do I smoke or anything like that.

I couldn't eat marmite though which was heart breaking. I just couldn't keep it down!!! I had one or two runny-ish fried eggs on toast and tried my first ever cup of tea when I was newly pregnant. On discovering I actually quite liked tea, I carried on drinking it. I guess not being a regular tea drinker, I wasn't aware it was a no-no when pregnant?! :S Either way, my son and I have both turned out fine so no harm done, right?

I feel that if you give people a lengthy list of what they can or can't eat or have to eat a particular way etc etc, it's only going to cause more stress and confusion. I've seen a few comments on here where some women ate what they wanted but in moderation and I think that's fine.

I did, however, make a more concerted effort to eat more fruit and veg than I usually did and that has carried on now as I feed my son. If I'm going to insist he eat more fruit and veg, then I probably should be doing so, too! I also drank way more water than ever before, never leaving the house without my bottle of water!

Cutting down the caffeine has been hardest for me as I drink copious amount of tea and love to eat chocolate. I've been very good and switched to pg decaf and was surprised with how good it tasted (tried some bad see at in the past), treating myself to a little chocolate as and when I need it.

Currently 32 weeks and like others who have commented, I have made informed choices on what to avoid. For the last 7 years, I lived in some far-flung places (which have no regulation and far, far poorer sanitary/food storage standards than the UK) and never got food poisoning/listeria/salmonella once, despite eating all the things listed above plus rare meat and unwashed fruit and veg etc. As others have said, I have faith in the procedures put in place in the UK. This and common sense (i.e. not eating something if I don't know how long it has been sat out etc) means I am comfortable that I can decide what to eat.

I don't drink a lot of tea/coffee anyway, and switched to decaf as caffeine generally makes me feel a bit woo (whether pregnant or not).

I am still enjoying runny eggs, shellfish, the odd small bit of pate, unpasteurised cheese, cold deli meats, sushi and the odd glass of wine/half pint of beer.

The only thing I am not eating is peanuts, as my husband had a peanut allergy and the midwife wanted me to avoid them, as there is a reasonable chance the baby could inherit the same allergy. Of course, that is the only thing I have craved. My post-birth treat will be a glass of champagne and peanut butter on toast.

I didn't make any changes to anything that I ate during any of my pregnancies - other than avoiding the things that made me feel quite ill. As others have said, if you eat in moderation and it's things you're used to eating, it shouldn't have any major impact.

I avoid PG Tips Decaf for one! Instead I use Clipper Organic Decaf because they use the far safer method of CO2 removal of the caffeine whereas PG Tips use a chemical process then tell pregnant women to go ahead and ingest the chemicals. Not cool IMHO.

The main thing I missed when pregnant was funny eggs! Hard yokes didn't cut it.

I had to drink tea, not decaf, as that is my vice . Alcohol was easy to just give up although appletiser became a good friend.

When I craved Camembert cheese I just baked it before eating - problem solved!

I always watch what I ea, when Im Preggers.I avoid liver,eat only solid ice cream.food which has pasteurised egg yolk ,no peanuts less intake of dizzy drinks its hard but its better to b safe and stress free.

I'm still on decaff and don't even notice the difference now!

I was lucky in that I don't really eat many of the things you're not supposed to have in pregnancy (soft cheese, pate etc). Also don't drink caffeinated drinks after a heart surgery. Toughest thing was runny egg yolk. It doesn't happen often but sometimes you just need a bacon & egg butty! Had one my first morning home after giving birth

On the other hand, consumption of dairy milk went up exponentially!

I had diet controlled gestational diabetes so my diet was quite limited during pregnancy. I ended up on quite a few low GI alternatives like seedy breads, porridge and jacket potatoes. I drank sparkling water with lime if we were out for dinner.

Instead of my usual many cups of tea I drank peppermint tea or lemon and ginger tea and reduced my intake to 2 cups of normal tea a day. The peppermint tea actually helped a lot with the constant heartburn.

I went off tea in my first 3 pregnancies, currently 14 weeks with DC4 and thankfully I'm still drinking it.

I drink Becks blue or alcohol free pear cider instead of wine, alcohol free wine just doesn't taste nice.

What I really miss in runny eggs though. We have our own chickens, I found out I was expecting DC2 the week before they started laying! I only miss soft cheese if I'm pregnant at Christmas, but I think the NHS now actually say that Stilton is fine as it's a hard cheese but Danish blue isn't.

If there's something I can't have, I'll up the quality of other ingredients to make myself feel like I'm having a treat, and it changes the taste anyway.

I love bacon and brie butties, but now I'll buy deli fresh bread and proper bacon from the butchers (instead of nipping to the supermarket) and it tastes amazing on its own... don't feel like I'm missing out at all :)

I gave up takeaways as they made me feel sick(er)!
Wish I'd discovered decaff tea and coffee as I feel better drinking it. I've used all brands, including yours and they taste just as good as ordinary tea.

Did find I was missing a beer sometimes, particularly with a curry but found I could really tell the difference with non alcoholic ones so went a bit 80s and added a dash of lime cordial to a non alcoholic beer which just took the edge off the 'different' taste.

Started the day with one cup of ordinary tea then switched to decaf. Also got my DH to get some decaf coffee for his coffee machine so I could enjoy a latte.

Have really missed pâté (especially at Christmas!) but know it will taste extra good as a post pregnancy treat on some crusty bread!

Found myself craving citrus and sugary drinks and orange juice every morning so to avoid the big sugar hits, I am drinking water with ice and lemon, sounds boring but the squeeze of lemon really did give me the citrus taste I was after!

I didn't find it very difficult to avoid food/drink not recommended during pregnancy.
I went off tea/coffee before I found out I was pregnant.
None of the other 'banned' stuff is anything I enjoyed frequently beforehand and there is such a huge range of produce available that there was always plenty to tempt my taste buds.

To be honest, I was so glad to be pregnant, avoiding certain foods was no issue at all. Not a big drinker, decaff coffee and tea were fine, and though I like cheese a lot I don't have soft/blue cheese often.

The acid issues were more of a pain as you don't think about things like tomatos being quite so acidic

I drank redbush instead of tea. And I managed to avoid food altogether for several weeks by being sick all the time...

Becks blue instead of any alcohol worked a treat for me!

TBH when I got my list from the MW about foods & drinks to avoid - I was shocked, Im a fussy eater so there wasn't much on there for me to avoid. But when I saw cheeses I was devastated.
Pregnant over Xmas with the cheeseboards was a nightmare - I decided I would just had a nibble :)
I know its only 9months - but were supposed to enjoy it, not stressing about what we can & cannot eat.
DH took the list very seriously - so much so that it went on the fridge!
He got me some decaff tea (supermarket own brand) but I still had a normal tea in the morning to get me going - if I knew I would be going out to lunch then I would have decaff so I could have a coke.

One thing my preggo books says to do & enjoy in the final trimester is to have all the hot drinks now while you can! So I have treat myself to some caramel lattes for my tassimo - which is my daily treat, with cream & choc sauce :)

I have a decaff in the evening so it doesn't keep me awake...

I did miss my cocktails though... when out I stick to mocktails, having a fancy drink is just as fun as the alcohol - however the mocktail hangover is just as bad as a regular one - think its the come down of all the sugars & juices in the fruit!

I only cut down on drinking alcohol with a small glass of wine very occasionally. I also think it's gone a bit far these days with the list of foods to avoid.