Post by dragonfly08 on Dec 31, 2012 8:05:22 GMT -5
I didn't, but my OB didn't really have a problem with it. I just chose not to after having a raging case of food poisoning during the first trimester (likely from something supposedly "safe" I made at home, not from deli meat). That made me way too cautious about everything because I didn't want to chance it again!
I ate deli meat in moderation, but it was usually on a hoagie from a reputable place like Wawa. If I got sliced meat from the deli, I ate it in the first few days that I bought it. I think the risk is relatively low.
Canada did have a national listeria outbreak from deli meat just a few years ago. A major company improperly sterilized it's machinery, and they made like a zillion different labels of deli meat. I do buy that on the bunch of foods you can eat that might have listeria, deli meat is up there. And I don't necessarily think store cut is safer than prepackaged; it just takes one person misunderstanding a procedure to eff it all up.
But at the end of the day, when I'm looking at a sandwich or no lunch, I eat the sandwich.
Yes I ate cold deli meat, multiple times a week. The chances of me getting and then having me or my baby die from it are so very small. I can't be paranoid about everything.
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?
Until the cantaloupe outbreak surpassed it in 2011, the second deadliest outbreak of foodborne illness was from Listeria in deli meat/hot dogs in 1998 (the deadliest was Listeria in queso fresco in 1985). So that pretty much explains why soft cheeses and deli meat/hot dogs are historically at the top of the list of food warnings for pregnant women. The cantaloupe outbreak was kind of novel because it was a large outbreak that didn't stem from a processed food like the other usual suspects. But most cases are sporadic (not from large outbreaks from a single source) and the source is generally not identifiable - basically you just have to cook your food correctly, avoid cross-contamination, and hope for the best.