{"id":876,"date":"2019-03-21T15:25:06","date_gmt":"2019-03-21T14:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/laestrelladeljamon.es\/blog\/?p=876"},"modified":"2019-06-19T12:08:02","modified_gmt":"2019-06-19T11:08:02","slug":"is-it-possible-to-eat-ham-during-pregnancy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/laestrelladeljamon.es\/blog\/en\/is-it-possible-to-eat-ham-during-pregnancy\/","title":{"rendered":"Is it possible to eat ham during pregnancy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cCongratulations! What a pity you won\u2019t be able to eat ham for a few months…\u201d
\nHow many times have you heard that when discussing a friend\u2019s newly-announced pregnancy? At least in this country where ham is a commonly-eaten delicacy that many of us find hard to give up.
\nAt La Estrella del Jam\u00f3n<\/a>, we are not in any position to confirm or deny this statement. Obviously, you\u2019re not reading a medical blog or a scientific publication here. What we can do is show you that studies have been published over the last few years related to this topic.<\/strong><\/p>\n


\nDuring pregnancy, among other things, it is not recommended to eat raw meat<\/strong> (as ham is usually classified), as it is associated with catching toxoplasmosis<\/strong>, a disease passed on by a parasite that can cause severe disorders in the foetus. Let\u2019s go back to the beginning.<\/p>\n

What is toxoplasmosis?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

As we mentioned, this is a disease caused precisely by protozoa called Toxoplasma gondii that complete their life cycle in felines, although it has been detected in over 300 species of mammals, reptiles and birds as intermediate hosts.
\nHuman beings can be infected by this parasite when we ingest meat, eggs or milk infected by it.<\/strong> In patients with a healthy immune system, its symptoms can be confused with a virus, as it usually goes no further than fever, headaches, inflamed lymphatic glands and muscular and throat pain, and sometimes not even those symptoms appear. The greatest risk<\/strong> doubtlessly lies in mother-foetus transmission<\/strong>, as this can produce miscarriages, malformations or brain or heart injuries.
\nToxoplasma gondii is destroyed at temperatures over 66\u00baC and under -20\u00baC (in this case recommendations vary between 24 and 48 hours although some professionals would extend that to ten days). Consequently, when referring to a pregnant woman\u2019s diet, it is recommended to eat well-cooked meat, avoid unpasteurised dairy products, deli meats, raw eggs and to wash fruit and vegetables well.<\/p>\n

So, what about ham? Might it be raw meat?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Ham is a processed product coming from the meat of an omnivorous animal, pigs, likely to be contaminated by Toxoplasma gondii. It is neither heated nor frozen. Simply, the use of sea salt causes a series of enzyme reactions and reduces the bacterial action. Consequently, it was usual that, given the lack of scientific evidence that ham curing would get rid of the parasite, it was systemically recommended to avoid ham during pregnancy. However, recent studies have questioned this recommendation.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Extended curing minimises the risk.<\/strong><\/h4>\n

In 2011, researchers from the University of Zaragoza performed the first study, published in the Journal of Food Protection, that assessed the influence of the ham curing process on the evolution of the parasite responsible for toxoplasmosis. According to the team coordinated by Susana Bayarri, lecturer in the area of Nutrition and Bromatology, after analysing hams cured for 14 months originating from infected pigs in which no viable parasites were detected in the final products, \u201cour results show that consumption of cured ham<\/strong> as described in the study represents a barely significant risk of contracting toxoplasmosis,<\/strong> although additional studies are required to assess the security of cured ham products under differing curing time, salt and nitrite concentration conditions\u201d.
\nOn the other hand, in 2016 researchers from the universities of Granada and Valencia published a study in the Food Microbiology scientific journal. The study used a new method to detect these protozoa in samples of commercialised Serrano ham. 475 samples where the presence of Toxoplasma gondii stood at 8.84% of the ham pieces being analysed, where approximately 4.84% of the total samples were infectious.<\/strong>
\nAfter the study, tests were run on samples from pigs experimentally infected with the parasites, and then cured afterwards using different methods and its persistence in the final product was evaluated.
\nThe conclusions reached by Alberto Osuna – from the Biochemical and Molecular Parasitology Research Group at the University of Granada – were that the most effective way of terminating the parasite is doubtlessly by freezing the meat, either before or after curing the ham. This is perhaps the least relevant aspect of the study as it was a usual recommendation from doctors during pregnancy. However, the study demonstrated that the curing process and procedure set by the EU approved standard means that this parasite is no longer infectious.<\/strong> This means that a traditional process (that is endorsed by the Serrano Ham TSG) performed in correct hygiene-health conditions will eliminate the risk of transmitting Toxoplasma gondii.<\/p>\n

More recent studies<\/strong><\/h4>\n

In 2018, the Women\u2019s Unit of the Hospital San Juan de Dios in Cordoba organised sessions with Los Pedroches PDO to look at the topic of pregnancy and ham. Both the Head of this Unit, Jos\u00e9 Eduardo Arjona, and the coordinator of the Los Pedroches Valley Agro-food Quality Research Centre (CICAP), Manuela Hern\u00e1ndez, highlighted that it was unnecessary to remove a heart-friendly product<\/strong> such as ham (Iberian in this case) from a pregnancy diet as it is also a source of protein, vitamins and minerals.<\/strong> They justified this recommendation based on the lack of \u201cconclusive studies that state that eating it increases the chances of catching toxoplasmosis.\u201d
\nAccording to the different studies carried out in the CICAP, once the ham has matured for 15 months, toxoplasmosis is no longer active, ensuring that the parasite cannot survive.
\nAs you see, there are different studies that open up the debate on whether it is advisable or not to eat ham when pregnant, providing scientific evidence to modify, or not, food recommendations for pregnant women. From this blog, we can only encourage you to follow the advice of health professionals,<\/strong> who are bound to be up to date on the latest research<\/strong> and will doubtlessly take good care of your health and your future children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cCongratulations! What a pity you won\u2019t be able to eat ham for a few months…\u201d How many times have you heard that when discussing a friend\u2019s newly-announced pregnancy? At least in this country where ham is a commonly-eaten delicacy that many of us find hard to give up. At La Estrella del Jam\u00f3n, we are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":819,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[161],"tags":[313],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/laestrelladeljamon.es\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/laestrelladeljamon.es\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/laestrelladeljamon.es\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laestrelladeljamon.es\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laestrelladeljamon.es\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=876"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/laestrelladeljamon.es\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1128,"href":"https:\/\/laestrelladeljamon.es\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876\/revisions\/1128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laestrelladeljamon.es\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/laestrelladeljamon.es\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laestrelladeljamon.es\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laestrelladeljamon.es\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}