Goat's Cheese and Pregnancy

Posted by Conor O'Neill on Monday, March 27, 2006

We were in The English Market on Friday getting a few bits. I was buying the membrillo in Iago which is the bigger of the two cheese places. In passing, as Catherine is preggers, I asked if they had any pasteurised goat’s cheese. The person I asked didn’t know but one of the other ladies came over and said that no goat’s cheese or sheep’s cheese is safe to eat during pregnancy because listeria is not killed by pasteurisation. We were a bit stunned as we are pretty sure Catherine has eaten some of the harder goat’s cheeses on the other pregnancies.

When we went home, she checked her library of pregnancy books and they all said that listeria is killed by pasteurisation. So what is the reality? Is listeria a red herring?  Are there any safe non-cow cheeses during pregnancy? In any case, what are the stats on problems occuring? Ignoring goats for a moment, what is the problem with soft cheeses like brie if they are pasteurised?

Let’s use that collective swarm intelligence out there to create a bizarre answer to this conundrum and post it to Wikipedia.

[tags]Listeria, Goat’s Cheese, Chevre, Brie, Pasteurisation, Pasteurization, Iago, English Market[/tags]


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