Pregnancy and diet: which foods to avoid?

During pregnancy, dietary recommendations can quickly make it feel like you can't eat anything anymore. In reality, the list of precautions is short and easy to remember once you have it in mind — the real challenge is remembering it while cooking, not memorizing it in the first place.

Foods to avoid during pregnancy

• Unpasteurized soft cheeses with a bloomy rind (camembert, brie): risk of listeriosis.
• Cured raw meats (cured ham, dry sausage, rillettes): to cook thoroughly or avoid, same risk.
• Raw or undercooked fish and meat (sushi, tartare, rare meat): risk of toxoplasmosis and listeriosis.
• Raw or undercooked eggs (homemade chocolate mousse, homemade mayonnaise): risk of salmonella.
• Unpasteurized milk and products containing it.
• Fish high in mercury (swordfish, shark, tuna in large amounts).
• Alcohol, to avoid entirely throughout pregnancy.
• Excess caffeine: limit to about 2 cups of coffee a day.

What remains perfectly safe

The vast majority of everyday foods remain perfectly fine: well-washed fruits and vegetables, well-cooked meat and fish, pasteurized cheeses, well-cooked eggs, grains, legumes. Pregnancy doesn't require a special diet — just avoiding a specific list of microbiological risks.

The real challenge: remembering it day to day

The risk is almost never not knowing that you should avoid smoked salmon — it's forgetting it once in ten times, in the middle of preparing a meal, or not thinking to check an ingredient in a recipe found online that wasn't designed with pregnancy in mind.

Cooking without having to think about it every time

That's exactly what MealFridge's pregnancy mode does: once activated in your profile, every recipe generated — whether from your scanned fridge, the "Tonight" decider or the weekly meal plan — automatically excludes discouraged foods. You no longer have to check every ingredient yourself at every meal.