The short answer: Yes, you can eat deli meat while pregnant if you heat it until it’s steaming hot, which kills listeria bacteria and makes it safe to enjoy. Choosing to eat it cold is a personal risk decision, but it goes against pregnancy food-safety recommendations because listeria can survive in refrigerated, ready-to-eat meats.
Understanding Listeria Risk in Pregnancy
Okay, do me a favor, don’t Google “listeria and pregnancy.” You will be rocking in the corner and you won’t eat.
Listeria monocytogenes is a bacterium that lives in soil, water, and food-processing environments and can contaminate a variety of foods. Pregnancy changes your immune response, making you roughly 10 or more times more likely to develop listeriosis than non-pregnant adults, and infection can sometimes lead to miscarriage, premature birth, stillbirth, or severe newborn infection, although these outcomes are overall rare.
Why deli meat carries risk
Listeria is destroyed by thorough cooking, but ready-to-eat foods like deli meats can become contaminated again after cooking during slicing, packaging, or storage. This is why refrigerated, pre-sliced or deli-counter meats are considered higher-risk in pregnancy unless they are reheated until steaming hot just before eating.
How to safely eat deli meat
- Heat deli meats (including hot dogs) until they are steaming hot throughout before eating.
- Eat them promptly after heating rather than letting them cool back down in the fridge.
- If you prefer cold sandwiches, you can heat the meat first and then let it cool briefly just before eating, understanding that guidelines still emphasize “steaming hot” for maximum safety. Still, a steaming hot salami sandwich doesn't sound great.
Recognizing listeriosis symptoms
Listeriosis in pregnancy often looks like a flu-like illness, with symptoms such as fever, muscle aches, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea. Symptoms usually appear within about 2–30 days after eating contaminated food, though in rare cases the incubation period can be longer, extending to several weeks.
If you are pregnant and develop these symptoms, especially after eating higher-risk foods, contact your healthcare provider promptly; diagnosis is typically made with blood tests, and listeriosis is treated with antibiotics, which can help protect both parent and baby.
Making your own decision
Pregnancy comes with many food rules, and different people choose different risk thresholds; some heat every sandwich, while others occasionally eat cold deli meat knowing there is a small but non-zero added risk. Being aware that the absolute risk of listeriosis is low, but the potential consequences can be serious, helps you make a choice that matches your comfort level rather than a blind freakout.
Listeria is not limited to deli meat; it has been linked to soft cheeses made from unpasteurized milk, certain ready-to-eat smoked seafood, refrigerated pâtés, and some contaminated fresh produce, which is why pregnancy food-safety advice covers several food categories.
I’m not even going to get into nitrates and sodium here. There’s all kinds of crap in delicious food that none of us should eat. We all know it’s bad but it still tastes good, so whatever. You’re pregnant, not stupid.
Oh, and if you decide to give up baloney but still want to help out on a farm during lambing season, you just whoa nelly. It seems that it’s very easy to pick up listeriosis from newborn lambs. An interesting WTF fact that couldn’t be ignored.
Also check out: Can I Eat Cheese While Pregnant?
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