Foods to avoid

[HeppiBean]

Food and drink to avoid! Healthy eating during pregnancy is as much about which foods to avoid as which foods to eat. Some food may harm your baby as well as making you ill, so food safety needs to be a priority. Now that you’re pregnant, you should really leave the following foods out of your diet:

• Undercooked or raw eggs, or foods likely to be made with them, (including home-made mousses, ice cream and mayonnaise, all of which may be made with raw eggs). Eggs should be cooked until hard.
• Undercooked or very rare meat and fish – there should be no pink bits left (even if that’s the way you usually like it!).
• Raw fish in dishes like sushi, smoked salmon or oysters.
• Raw or cured meat like steak tartare or parma ham.
• Unpasteurised milk, cheese or yogurt.
• Soft cheeses like brie, camembert, ricotta, or blue veined cheeses (ordinary cheddar cheese, cream cheese or cottage cheese is fine, as long as they are pasteurised – check the label!).
• Pâté or liver – these can have excessive amounts of vitamin A which can harm your baby.
• Some prepared foods such as potato salad or coleslaw can sometimes contain high levels of listeria.
• Check that any ready meals or reheated foods are piping hot all the way through before you eat them.
• Swordfish, marlin and shark. These fish can contain potentially unsafe levels of mercury which can harm your baby’s developing nervous system. Tuna also contains mercury, so limit the amount you eat to up to four medium-size cans (140g drained weight, per can) OR two fresh steaks (up to 170g raw weight, per steak) a week.
• Peanuts – The Department of Health guidelines have changed, and it is now considered safe to eat peanuts or foods containing peanuts during pregnancy or while breastfeeding, even if you have a family history of allergies. There is no clear evidence that eating or not eating peanuts during pregnancy or whilst breastfeeding effects the chances of your baby developing a peanut allergy.
• Alcohol – excessive alcohol intake has been associated with many foetal problems, and even moderate alcohol consumption may affect the development of your baby’s brain.

Highlighted items... What if they're home-made? And are there any more? I really can't remember from last time lol xx

 

[berit87]

Homemade potato salad and coleslaw are fine

 

[Hope81]

Coleslaw is ok of it's made with supermarket bought mayo and not home made one. I don't see what can be wrong with potato salad unleash it uses mayo so the same applies

 

[HeppiBean]

What about pate? 'Cause surely if you make it yourself you can watch what you put in it :/ xxx

 

[Sunshine_1]

I've never heard of Coldslaw and potato salad being on the list....I've lived on them the past 7 weeks, all I can stomach some days, and I've told the dietician this and she was fine with it (more interested in the fat in the mayo than anything, but I was still loosing weight at that point, she couldn't say anything). TBH as long as it's within date and not been opened for more than two days, I wouldn't worry too much.

I also had soft ice cream (Mr Whippy, mcFlurry) on my lists given to me midwife and my dietician, and the midwife mentioned it, however this subject has been debated on these pages before, so I'll give up the soft ice cream and carry on eating my potato salad!!!

As for Pate, it's made with Liver and Liver is what contains the Vitamin A in huge quantities, and is one reason why it's banned.....I miss it soooooooo much!

 

[Hope81]

Pâté is sth that you shouldn't touch and one rule you shouldn't brake not even once. The amount of vitamin A in liver is astronomical and vitamin A on big amounts is toxic for fetuses.
Unleash you want to make vegetable pate where only the risk maybe of listeria applies.
Stay away from pâté and liver

 

[HeppiBean]

i dont eat liver so wouldnt be liver pate anyway. when you make pate yourself you can make it anything xx

 

[inky]

I didn't know about the mr whippy thing and ate one a few weeks ago, whoops! Cheeses like Ricotta - are they ok if cooked? I love spinach and ricotta!!

 

[Hope81]

Ricotta is from pasteurized milk so should be perfect. Anyway I ate tones of that until now lol...

 

[inky]

Oh that's good, I've been eating it too and hadn't seen it on a list before

 

[dyscochick]

Check the packet but some camemberts are made from pasteurised milk too!