Anonymous wrote:No. And I ate soft cheese, frozen yogurt, deli meat, and sushi while pregnant. But something about salad bars gross me out. But I also avoid them when not pregnant. With the exception of Whole Foods because I've never even seen a brown piece of lettuce there.

Wait. You're not supposed to eat FroYo?

Anonymous wrote:seeing as recent listeria outbreaks have been linked to melon and peanut butter (neither of which are on teh "do not eat" list), I feel like a clean salad bar is fine.

Sure, and the ones before that were linked to spinach. The point is that the guidance for pregnant women suggests avoiding lunch meat and soft cheese in order to protect against listeriosis, but the contaminated items have been mostly produce in recent years.

Well if that salad bar has never made you sick before, it's no more likely to do so while you are pregnant (even though the stakes are higher, the odds are still very low.). The tricky thing about listeria is the outbreak foods are so unpredictable-I think the last one I saw announced was in frozen fruit. I followed oster's 'expecting better' advice and avoided queso fresco but also added sandwich meat. it's tough I personally ultimately went for salad bars I felt were well maintained (after the first tri). at some point I felt avoiding veggies was the greater harm.

seeing as recent listeria outbreaks have been linked to melon and peanut butter (neither of which are on teh "do not eat" list), I feel like a clean salad bar is fine.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I used to go to the Whole Foods salad bar and then microwave it.

Were you getting a green salad or some of the other stuff they have there? The idea of microwaving lettuce is one of the grosser things I've heard.

Sorry, I meant the hot food items.

...but that stuff has already been cooked?
Pretty sure op and the rest of us are talking about cold items, which might be reused day after day or not cleaned properly.

Yeah, I think the risk is primarily from unwashed produce.

I did eat at salad bars regularly (though just Whole Foods, not, like, really sketchy places). I also got food poisoning at 36 weeks, not from a salad bar. We are pretty sure it was norovirus from a sick restaurant employee. It sucked and required a hospital stay, but baby was fine, and I learned that you can't control for all variables.

Raw vegetables in general carry a higher risk when pregnant because of potential bacteria. If you go to a place where you've regularly eaten and you "trust" their cleanliness, you are probably fine. Like anything, there's always a risk - you just have to decide how much weight to attach to it. Since you already ate it, I certainly wouldn't freak out. And if you didn't get sick from it - then all is fine.