Do (did) you eat heated deli meat?

[dancingirl21]

I make a really yummy French dip sandwich with roast beef from the deli. I heat it with the au jus to boiling. Would you eat this when pregnant?

[jr009j]

Yes. But I usually didn't worry about heating deli meat at all as long as it was from a reputable place.

[Deleted]

Dec 30, 2012 20:21:49 GMT -5 jr009j said:

Yes. But I usually didn't worry about heating deli meat at all as long as it was from a reputable place.

This. I did not heat my meat up and my doctor told me it wasn't a necessity to do so.

[Deleted]

Yes, I'd eat that. I have eaten a regular cold sandwich when it was the lunch provided for me. I don't really buy deli meat for myself, so that hasn't come up.

I still eat pretty much everything though. I've been out for sushi twice, and I don't just eat the cooked stuff.

[knitty]

Dec 30, 2012 20:23:24 GMT -5 @msstarry said:

I would eat non heated deli meat except for the fact I don't really dig deli meat that much anyway, so it was easy to give up. But I ate / drank a lot of other "bad" things. Probably why my baby is so colicky

Cold deli meat is a relatively high risk for listeria. If you get listeria the foetus dies. If it ony caused colic it wouldn't be an issue.

[Deleted]

"relatively high risk" is still pretty minuscule.

[jenjen]

Dec 30, 2012 20:29:00 GMT -5 knitty said:

Dec 30, 2012 20:23:24 GMT -5 @msstarry said:

I would eat non heated deli meat except for the fact I don't really dig deli meat that much anyway, so it was easy to give up. But I ate / drank a lot of other "bad" things. Probably why my baby is so colicky

Cold deli meat is a relatively high risk for listeria. If you get listeria the foetus dies. If it ony caused colic it wouldn't be an issue.

Cantaloupe had a salmonella recall this year and listeria in the past but no one says to stop eating cantaloupe.

I also ate cold or warm deli meat, I'm a rebel but my dr and I are both laid back and choose to do things in moderation.

[CloudBee]

I've had probably 4 deli ham sandwiches since getting pregnant. Each one was eaten at home, and yes, I did heat the ham up in the microwave first. It cools off SO fast that I didn't have to eat my sandwich hot.

[Deleted]

I made paninis.

[jackie011]

My doc said that deli sandwiches from Subway, Jimmy Johns, etc. are fine and fresh sliced meat from the deli counter that you eat that day is also ok. She cautioned me not to buy the prepackaged meat (Hillshire Farms type stuff) or meat that is presliced at the deli counter. Either way, it's an easy thing for me to give up at this point in the pregnancy.

[Deleted]

I did heat it up. We had a family friend die from listeria from the cantaloupe outbreak mentioned above, so I was more paranoid about listeria than I probably would have been otherwise. I also didn't eat cantaloupe ha.

[speckledfrog]

Yes. My doctor didn't ban deli meat for me. Just raw foods and fish high in mercury.

[Deleted]

I've eaten Jimmy Johns a couple times but at home I heat deli meat up. I've only eaten either less than 5 times. I won't touch cantaloupe because of the outbreak last year here.

[Deleted]

I don't eat unheated deli meat type sandwiches--pregnant or not--I have never liked cold sandwiches much. I am not a fastidious pregnancy rule-follower by any stretch but I do generally follow the rules for listeria and toxoplasmosis. But again there aren't that many rules to follow since I don't eat cold deli meat anyway, cook my pork thoroughly even outside of pregnancy, and only have unpasteurized soft cheese on rare occasion in a fancy restaurant when not pregnant.

[Deleted]

Toxoplasmosis rules only apply to outdoor cats, alas, so I don't even get off litter box duties.

[Deleted]

Dec 30, 2012 20:55:28 GMT -5 @tokenhoser said:

Toxoplasmosis rules only apply to outdoor cats, alas, so I don't even get off litter box duties.

Yeah, I don't even have a cat, and my understanding is even if you have an outdoor cat the chances of it contracting toxoplasmosis and shedding the dangerous spores while you are pregnant are vanishingly small.

I think it can be in pork (but probably pretty rare). I actually think it's more important to be cautious when dealing with soil outdoors... my neighborhood has a feral cat colony so I wear gardening gloves. No big deal.

[arch01]

i never heated my deli meat.

[brit1017]

I never heated my deli meat. I bought sandwiches from reputable places that did a high volume of business (ie, the meat was sliced the day that it was opened). My dr had no problem with it.

[redheadk]

Dec 30, 2012 20:21:52 GMT -5 toriwc said:

I eat non heated deli meat. I like to live on the edge. And my doctor is ok with it.

Same here.

[Deleted]

Dec 30, 2012 20:37:22 GMT -5 @mrsbecky07 said:

I did heat it up. We had a family friend die from listeria from the cantaloupe outbreak mentioned above, so I was more paranoid about listeria than I probably would have been otherwise. I also didn't eat cantaloupe ha.

]

I had a friend get seriously ill (barely lived) from strawberries with e-coli. I'm paranoid about that now.

You may recall my thread from PEC about irrational fears - I'm afraid of food poisoning.

That being said, I ate deli meat from places where it would be fresh, and I didn't always heat it. I also ate sushi.

[Deleted]

Since a couple of people have mentioned sushi I just want to point out that there is no listeria risk with it. It's just a risk of run-of-the-mill food poisoning, which you may be more susceptible to as a pregnant lady, but it won't hurt the baby.

[Brie]

Yep. I ate a ton of non-heated. Deli turkey was one of a few proteins I could stomach in first tri.

[spk926]

Yes! There are risks with everything and personally I don't find the risk of eating lunch meat throughout pregnancy to be very high. IMO if you are going to cut out lunch meat then you should cut out lettuce, cantaloupe and others foods in which listeria has been found widespread recently.

[ladygrey]

I've had Potbelly sandwiches (toasted) a few times, but nothing unheated yet.

[Deleted]

Dec 30, 2012 21:56:18 GMT -5 @fivedogs said:

Listeria is on all kinds of food (fish, meat, milk, fruits, vegetables, cheese (both deli cheese and unpasteurized soft cheese)) at low levels, grows to higher levels even when refrigerated, and then isn't killed on foods that are not heated to a high enough temperature. So it is found on both the fish/seafood and the prepared sushi. I'm not saying it is a huge risk (and probably no more of a risk than deli meats/cheeses, etc.), but there is definitely listeria in sushi (the second link looked at Listeria, Staph, Salmonella, and E. coli in frozen and freshly prepared sushi).

www.extension.org/pages/63881/listeria-monocytogenes-and-pregnancy
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18468048
www.public.health.wa.gov.au/2/402/2/listeria_infect.pm

Interesting, but I am still unconvinced. Just because it's there doesn't mean it is there in high enough quantities to cause harm, even in someone who is immunocompromised as during pregnancy. I mean, by this logic, almost NOTHING is safe enough to eat. That list from Western Australia is particularly restrictive. Life involves some risk; I would wager that it's more dangerous to your fetus to drive somewhere in a car than it is to eat sushi or deli meat. (Edit: not implying you disagree; these fearmongery lists just tend to piss me off because they cause so much unnecessary worry.)

But I stand corrected on my statement that Listeria does not occur in sushi. I will revise to say that 98.3% of the time Listeria is not in sushi and I would play those lotto odds any day.

[carolinagirl831]

Yes, my dr said it was fine as long from a reputable place and it hadn't been sitting in your fridge for a week

[DarcyLongfellow]

Yes. I've actually eaten a lot of deli meat this pregnancy, none of it heated. It was one of the only things I could stomach for a while, and the thought of heating it made me want to throw up.

I only eat it freshly sliced from the deli, not prepackaged.

[Deleted]

Dec 30, 2012 22:48:04 GMT -5 @fivedogs said:

So no, it's not a huge risk for infection, but I like people to know just how many pathogens they consume every day so they don't judge the stuff my kid puts in her mouth or the amount of dirt my dogs track in.

Do I ever hear you on that. Oy.

No, I appreciate being corrected. I really thought most of the sushi concern was with parasitic infection, which is a minimal risk since most sushi fish is frozen which kills parasites (again according to my understanding). Do you happen to know why it is that deli meat in particular gets the bad rap when Listeria can be found in so many foods? Is it that much more common, or is the cantaloupe outbreak just much more recent (so not as well known), or what?

[catbus]

No, because the idea of heating the stuff disgusted me. Like other posters, I just ate it cold, assuming I felt comfortable with where I was getting it from. I had so many Jimmy John's sandwiches in the last trimester, especially.

But I also drank occasionally, so there's that.

[dcn]

I heated it. I was also super crazy about food safety, even more than I was before and that is saying something. I admit I probably go overboard.