Would you eat...

Oysters Killpatrick ??

Would you consider them to be "cooked" ??

HI Iberru.

I wont no eat them at all if they were raw.
They say that it is OK to eat them if they have been cooked, but they need to be cooked really hot to kill the bacteria in them and unless i cook them myself i wouldnt as you donk know if they have been left to sit or how hot they got... Found this info

The story with raw oysters is that they can carry a bacteria called Vibrio parahaemolyticus. This bacteria causes nausea, diarrhea, vomiting and in some individuals, abdominal cramps and fever. The illness is usually mild or moderate and for most people lasts two to three days. But for people with preexisting liver conditions such as hepatitis, compromised immune systems, diabetes, cancer, a history of steroid use or a history of stomach problems, it can be fatal.

The bacteria itself is no more dangerous for pregnant women than it is for other people. And a short illness in a pregnant woman is unlikely to cause any harm to the fetus. But pregnant women are specifically warned because the most common course of treatment for this infection is tetracycline. Tetracycline will shorten the duration of the symptoms, but pregnant women are dissuaded from using it because they can cause yellowing or discoloration if the infant's teeth, when they come in.

The best way to avoid the bacteria is cook shellfish thoroughly. This means doing more than just blanching them or steaming them to open the shell. The meat itself has to be well cooked. Because the bacteria multiply in high temperatures, infection is also more common during the summer months

and also this

For seafood safety at home, you should cook most seafood to an internal temperature of 63 degrees C / 145 degrees F for 15 seconds. If you don't have a thermometer, the guidelines listed below can help you to determine whether seafood is done.

• For fish: Slip the point of a sharp knife into the flesh and pull aside. The edges should be opaque and the centre slightly translucent, with flakes beginning to separate.

• Let the fish stand three to four minutes to finish cooking.

• Prawns and lobster turn red when cooked; the flesh becomes pearly opaque. Scallops appear milky white or opaque and firm.

• For clams, mussels, and oysters, watch for the point at which their shells open, which indicates that they're done. Throw out those that remain closed after cooking.

• When microwaving seafood, rotate the dish several times to ensure even cooking. After letting the dish stand, check seafood in several spots with a thermometer to see if it has reached the proper temperature.

One concern about seafood, raw or cooked, is PCB and chemical contamination. As a general rule, ocean fish such as tuna, sea bass, sole, cod, haddock, and plaice are safer than river and lake varieties.


So you can eat them, you just need to be careful that they have been cooked really well...

I love oysters and seafood in general, but wont touch shellfish at all during pg... But that is just my opinion

HTH

I LOVE them and i have never thought about eating them or not while pregnant but i just googled it and some sites are saying yes it will be fine and others say no stay away. So who knows?

I would really like to know thought :)

NIkki

My Dr said it was fine so I did!! Just check with your Dr and go with your gut instinct!!

i really miss eating mussels and other shellfish. I passed by a restaurant the other day and someone was eating a huge bowl of mussels, and I was just salivating!!
But yeah, some say it's ok to eat and others say to avoid.
I suppose I'll have to hold out for another 20 weeks! :-(

I thought you were supposed to stay away from mussels and oysters because they can have a build up of nasty chemicals and stuff? For some reason I though they were similiar to swordfish and flake? I could be wrong

That being said I have eaten mussels, it was at a friend's in a paella and I didn't think. They were cooked though. I wouldn't do it regularly but I guess if you have a huge craving for them it is your decision.

To be honest i never really gave up eating anything through out both my pg's. I didnt eat things like blue cheese(which i hate anyway) & brie, oh & pea nuts. But i ate plenty of prawns & mussles.
Like ameila said......"Just check with your Dr and go with your gut instinct!!"

Whats wrong with Peanuts??? i eat them all the time - have i been doing the wrong thing?

I think peanuts are ok. I read in 'What to expect when you're expecting' that it's actually ok, unless you yourself have an allergy which could affect your bub. which you wouldnt be eating them anyway in the first place.
I've been eating all sorts of nuts. My naturopath recommended them as snacks between meals, as they are healthy and full of protein, esp. almonds which good for brain development.

I craved seafood like crazy and ate sushi AT LEAST once a week all through my PG, except for 2 strenuous weeks in Germany - i came back into stanstead airport, and immediately bought and devoured 3 trays of sushi on the floor outside the shop! LOL. I never worried about eating any of it, raw or cooked. They say long-lived fish like tuna and swordfish should be eaten in moderation because they can have higher levels of mercury in their flesh, but they say 2 portions a week is ok of just those fish - you could eat fish for every meal and not have to have either of those more than twice a week!

I have friends in Japan and women there are told to eat plenty of fish (including raw shellfish) during PG, just as in France women aren't told not to eat soft cheeses. I say if you're worried check with your doctor, but i personally never thought it was a good idea to ignore a craving ;)

Bec

yer im REALLY fussy about food, not eating any seafood, never really did anyway... and im really careful that i cook everything VERY well lol :P
but i think im just over paranoid lol

I just ate what I felt like, but always made sure that it's fresh or cooked through well. I had a thing with feta when I was pg, just could not keep my grubby little paws off it!! I would buy the small tubs and use it with-in two weeks, if there were still some left, I would throw it away and buy fresh feta. Yum *drooling* :) I don't think that you have to go overboard and cut things from your diet. If you are eating heatly and your food is fresh and you know it's has been prepared in a clean enviroment, I can't see a problem

I love sea food especially oysters and prawns but I chose not to risk it.

I wasn't going to lose my baby from something that I ate no matter how much I desired it. There is a reason that they say not to eat some stuff! Years of research as to why babies have died have led to these reccommendations. This goes for all the stuff like soft chese and sushi too.

I've posted this a while ago but when I was doing my ante natal classes there was TWO cases at the hospital where babies were lost from Listeria. One was around 20 weeks! I guess having a midwife take my ante natal class that had to look after one of those girls made it seem closer to me not just something you hear about IYKWIM...

Thanks for that infor Sammi-j...
I am pretty good about what i eat and have been all along, but recently have wondered if i still need to be so strict - i guess the answer is yes and im like you i wont risk it... its only a few more months!
out of interest can you eat these things immediatly after birth??? or could it also affect bf? my sister was joking that she is going to bring me a huge platter of smoked salmon, soft cheeses etc etc as a birthing present!

I find the advice regarding food a little mysterious, to be honest.

The guiding principle must be to minimise the risk of harming your unborn baby.

But if that's the case, then why aren't pregnant women advised to stop driving/travelling in cars or jay-walking (to cite obvious examples of a "risky" activities that we do every day)? The likelihood of having a car accident and injuring yourself is much higher than contracting listeria, pregnant or otherwise.

Listeria is an easy target because it's amenable to a controlled medical study, and avoiding certain types of food doesn't appear to infringe too much on what we think of as normal life. I'd be interested (for example) to see the relative risk to my baby of contracting listeria from eating soft cheese vs. sitting in traffic for two hours per day, or working with heavy-duty cleaning chemicals. Even if the last two were found to be more risky (although I imagine conducting a controlled medical study of them would be quite hard), I suspect most people would ignore them because it's impractical for most women to stop working or driving the whole time that they are pregnant.

Thinking through all the potential consequences of all the things we do every single day, then it seems obvious that a 100% risk-free pregnancy is an impossible dream. Ultimately, it's up to each of us to assess those risks and to decide which risks we are prepared to take.

Wait 'til after you've had the baby. It gets even more mysterious!!

Re Peanuts........ I ate 'em like they were going out of fashion. Yum, yum.

I wouldn't eat mussels though - but that's just a general rule, pg or not........... you are brave people for thinking that's a food source. I'd rather eat my DH's crusty hat with the tide mark :cryinglaugh:. I'm pretty sure I saw that hat walking out of the house the other day.......

As for Blue Cheese - don't get me started.:doh:

I absolutley love seafood... infact each anniversary DH and I get a seafood platter from a seafood place in town... we long for that day!

I do steer clear of raw seafood, and only eat cooked seafood though (whilst pg) So I wouldn't eat Oysters Kilpatrick, only cause it is just heated, not actually 'cooked'.

I would love to hear ppls opinions on it all while BF...

And are cold prawns you know the ones that are cooked then frozen ok?

I am like Hoobley... Thankfully my DH has a real Balinese belief in taht if I was ever cravbing anything I HAD to have it or else it would effect the baby in utero, by denying them something!!

So the only thing I avoided was stuff I didnt eat anyways!!!

Mel prawns are a tough one IMO. All prawns are frozen out at sea when they are caught, they are then brought back to land & left as is (whole green prawns) or are shelled whilst still frozen. Otherwise they are thawed & cooked (some shelled some left) then frozen again. The process is very safe from a listeria point of view. After that is when it becomes blurry. When you go to the fish markets, supermarket or fish shop & see prawns that are "fresh" don't touch them, they are 98% of the time time thawed & not really fresh. It would be rare to get actual fresh prawns unless you go to a prawning farm. If you purchase the prawns frozen, and I mean HARD FROZEN, then get them home & keep the in the fridge to defrost they will be fine. Make sure you eat them when they are still very cold & don't let them warm up, so if you want to have say 20 prawns in a sitting, I'd take half out & shell them / eat them then the other half out just to be sure.

If you like PM me & I can give you a website with a list of distributors in your area so you can get them in a proper frozen state. I work for a food wholesaler & we get them direct from the manufacturers so I have some contacts in other states that do the same thing as we do.

I've eaten them twice since I've been pregnant, they were damn hot too, so hot that I had to let them sit for a few minutes until they were bearable without any ill effects. Both times, they were devoured at the Norman Hotel in Brisbane....they are the best!

I have prawns often but only ones that are cooked hot, not the cold ones.
And I've had moreton bugs, crabs (only once each). I haven't had any other shellfish.

We had a brekkie meeting, couldnt have bacon and eggs cos the eggs were a bit runny, nor ham and tomato sandwich. It really left me with the sweet stuff, which I dont like for brekkie.

Someone asked me if i had to avoid the same stuff when BF, I'm not sure. I think the risks are reduced for listeria etc?