i don't know if this has made the news down south, but we've got a major listeria outbreak going on here... funny when i was avoiding ham during pregnancy people mocked me for being excessively cautious but holy cow i am glad i don't generally eat processed meat.

for those who haven't heard: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/08/28/recall-expands.html

Me too, smartygirl, but they've found a few cases here in QC linked to cheese. I believe they might be of the soft varieties I also avoided during pregnancy, however.

damn am i glad i didn't eat that stuff when pregnant. People would tease me about it too... like "Go on, eat the zabaglione , it won't kill you"... no, sure, it won't - but it's all raw egg whites and alcohol. I don't think the baby wants that. And one time in a restaurant, i asked for a different entree to the others' one, because it was chilled seafood and i didn't feel comfortable with it, they offered to microwave it, and i said no, it had to be either freshly cooked hot, or vegetarian etc., and they gave me deep fried tofu instead (yay!!), and later that night they bought out a birthday cake, and one of the guests said for laughs "do they need to deep fry it?" and when i realised the top layer was mousse (raw eggs again) i didn't eat it, just left it on the plate... there are some things that just aren't worth it. People kept saying to me "this isn't the dark ages, you know... we have refrigeration" etc etc... and like, so? shit still goes horribly wrong. i can't figure how they can ridicule a pregnant woman for avoiding known teratogens. fkn idiots.

zabaglione woman made the dessert herself, and also a trifle, totally soaked thick with alcohol; she kept saying 'GO ON, have some, one little bit won't kill you". Sure, it won't, but it might hurt my baby. I never really felt it was worth taking a chance on. It wasn't like i was starving - there's always *something* you can eat. (Too much, really, i ate like a sodding horse while pregnant.)

Yeah, I was teased for avoiding lunch meats when I was pregnant. Raw milk and cheeses weren't a problem, because they are largely illegal here. I wasn't about to introduce them while pregnant. I did have to avoid the soft white Mexican cheese that I love, which made me sad. I made up for it in other ways. :)

Yeah, none of this was an issue for me. Almost all soft cheeses in America have to be pasteurized, so no worries there. I don't eat lunch meat, or fish sushi, and we only eat egg substitute (pasteurized) so no worries there either.

Luckily being an American vegetarian eliminates pretty much all sources of listeria from one's diet regularly anyway. Woo!

Secret vegetarian bonus. That, and we are always Kosher.

db, i saw that about the cheese, too. shudder. now of course we're at the stage where we're watching what marmaduke eats. none of that stuff is at daycare though - it's pretty much all fresh fruit and traditional eritrean food.

i was very vegetarian when i got pregnant - but second trimester i started craving chicken and lamb, and i let my body do the leading.

I thought veg food would be fine, although I did once eat a stack of stinky tofu by accident at this seminar - i just thought it was normal or marinated tofu, until i sat down and took a bite. I didn't expect it to be stinky tofu though, mainly because that stuff is really hard to come by over here. Especially in regional victoria, like Lancefield. You just don't expect it.

My friend's 4 year old child died from listeria poisoning after drinking raw milk. Don't get me fucking started on raw milk and especially that raw milk website with all of their shitty statistics. I got into a heated email exchange with the directors of that group.

Wow, LG, that really sucks. I feel so badly for them.