Spanish women are divided between the love of a future child and their food preferences during pregnancy. While some do not mind giving up certain foods for nine months, others prefer to find a solution. What happens with Iberian ham? Is it really dangerous in pregnant women?
Experts have always recommended avoiding cold or processed meats, such as ham, deli meats, or other smoked or cured meats. These may contain listeria or salmonella bacteria, or toxoplasma parasites. However, proper freezing could kill bacteria and parasites.
Previously frozen ham
There are some doctors who say that today’s products already have enough sanitary measures so as not to alarm us if we eat ham during pregnancy, for example. So, despite the majority of doctors who say not to eat it raw, but rather freeze it or clean the plate, others say that it can be eaten with confidence.
One of the recommendations is that if the ham is frozen then it can be defrosted and eaten, since the toxoplasmosis parasite cannot withstand temperatures of 20ºC below zero for 2 days or 10ºC below zero for 3 days , therefore it can be eat food that has been frozen at 10 degrees below zero or above as long as it has been frozen for a few days, and has been slowly thawed. Also keep in mind that there may be a chance that not all freezers will reach freezing at these temperatures.
However, it is recommended to consult this practice with the specialist doctor in charge of the pregnancy. Not all women can eat the same foods during pregnancy.
Risk of poisoning
Experts say that unfrozen Iberian ham is only allowed for those women who have had toxoplasmosis. Not being able to eat ham is one of the worst prohibitions for pregnant women. If the woman has not had toxoplasmosis, it is recommended to avoid raw or undercooked meats due to the risk of contracting this disease during pregnancy. However, new research seems to show that the risk of ham may not be as great as it seems.
It is being proven that the more cured the ham is, the less risk of contracting toxoplasmosis during pregnancy. A greater healing process, the salt content and other factors make the survival of the toxoplasmosis parasite unfeasible over time. On the one hand, it is believed that if a woman has not had toxoplasmosis until the moment she becomes pregnant, it is practically impossible for her to contract it during pregnancy if she eats basically the same thing she ate before. All the packaged products that we usually buy in supermarkets have passed rigorous and exhaustive quality controls and should be free of this disease.
However, one of the problems is that when a pregnant woman goes to the store to buy ham, the curing time is not specified on the label. This information should always appear on the product labeling, not only for pregnant women, but also as general information for the consumer in general.
If you buy ham from a trusted place, which has been suitably salted, at the right temperatures and with a long curing time, it is very rare that the ham has contracted the parasite and has remained alive during that time.
