Game meat and pregnancy

[sumpnz]

I've got a freezer full of yummy elk meat. My wife is about 9-10 weeks pregnant. I suggested that she pull some elk steaks from the freezer for dinner the other night and she said that she'd read on several web sites that pregnant women are not supposed to eat any wild game meat. . Supposedly game meat is more likely to have parasites that are tough to kill with cooking that can affect pregnant women while being no big deal otherwise for guys and non-pregnant women. I call BS, but what say y'all.

Now granted, until she gets into the second trimester she's not eating much meat anyway (makes her even more queasy). This refusal to eat the elk at all though has put a damper on my ability to even cook the meat since most of the packages were cut assuming at least two people would be eating it.

 

[HighVelocity]

Hmmm... meat with parasites or meat from growth hormone injected cattle. Tough call.

I call BS. If you cook the meat properly then she shouldn't be worried about it.

 

[JackOfAllTradesMasterAtNone]

My boys are 11 and 13. My wife ate a lot of Venison while she was pregnant. The oldest is on the honor roll at school. The youngest is close. Both are very active in sports locally to the point of being allstars in some ranks. Both have incredible vission. (I do not) Wife is healthy and sexy as ever. I do not see why from reading one article about eating wild game that people shy away from it. A pregnant woman needs a balanced diet. So, since venison/Elk is a bit lower in collesterol than Beef, but not as shy as Moose or especially Cariboo, adjustments need to be made. That Elk was probably much more healthy than any USDA processed steer meat you can pick up at the local grocery store.

Her loss. BBQ the steaks, then have the leftovers for lunch the next day. Since I'm office bound, I nuke an already cooked, cut up steak, in a tupper wear tub with having added a bit of lemon drops, sprinkle of water, and my favorite BBQ sauce. Leave the lid on losely to keep some moisture in. Some boxed mashed potatoes with some gravy in another tub. My coworkers are envious. I only share with the cute ones...

-Steve

 

[dracphelan]

As another has pointed out, your choices are:
A. Properly cooking the elk to kill all parasites. This is an internal temperature of 160. I suggest using a good, electronic meat thermometer.
-or-
B. Grocery store meat loaded with hormones and antibiotics. And, I would still recommend properly cooking it.

Now, if this was fish, I would say she shouldn't eat it. Most fish nowadays has at least trace amounts of mercury (especially game fish). So, she should be limiting her fish intake.

 

[auschip]

a freezer full of yummy elk meat

I'm not a Doctor, but I think that part of your post was key. If something has been frozen, and then cooked properly, it shouldn't have parasites. I wouldn't ask her to eat any fresh killed meat, but frozen then cooked should be just fine.

 

[svtruth]

Ask her OBGYN?

 

[Kingcreek]

BS- more generations of folks thrived on wild game than anything from the MegaJunkFoodMart. Whole natural foods have always been our healthiest choices. If man made it or modified it, I avoid it.
Should I also mention those crappy "pre-natal" synthetic pseudo-vitamins?

 

[SteveS]

I checked two of my wild game cookbooks and neither said anything about pregnant women avoiding game. My wife ate deer and caribou throughout the time she was pregnant. She should ask her Ob/Gyn, just be sure.

 

[sumpnz]

She should ask her Ob/Gyn, just be sure.

Well, midwife, but I'll be sure to bring that up at the next appointment. Then again, that midwife does seem to be a peacenik type and probably a vegatarian. When I mentioned that I work in design and building of satallites, she seemed concerned that some done by my company are for DoD and similar customers. Bringing up the whole hunting/guns thing may get tricky. Course, that could turn out to be a good opportunity for educating her.

In the mean time I'll have to bring up the hormone issue and hope that sways her in the right direction.

 

[halvey]

I call BS, but what say y'all.

Total BS. Probably from the same "medical" group who wants all handguns, assult rifles and hi powered AIR GUNS banned.

 

[walking arsenal]

BS here also, my theory is that they dont want you hunting, just like med groups dont want you owning guns cause guns "hurt" people.

 

[GunGoBoom]

It's BS. BUT, may as well let her *think* that she's "better safe than sorry" - she won't be preggers for very many months of her & your lives. Meantime, make meals for yourself; give extra to friends/neighbors/family.

 

[Art Eatman]

Sounds like nonsense to me. Probably an offshoot from the problems in the deer herds of northern Colorado and IIRC Wisconsin. In the usual course of meat-as-meat? I really doubt it...

Art

 

[Delmar]

Let me toss something in here-my wife was an asthmatic/diabetic with high blood pressure, and anyone who has had to deal with those issues at the same time knows how tricky it can be.

Anyhow, her internist advised her to cut way back on beef consumption because of the steroids and such cattle are injected with and included in their feed.

I don't know why, but I asked him if venison would be considered dangerous for her, and he told both of us that he would much prefer her to eat wild game, properly cooked, rather than take another bite out of a hamburger.
BTW, he is not a hunter/sportsman of any kind, other than he likes to snow ski-I tease him about getting a discount with the orthopedic surgeon!

His rationale for suggesting wild game was steroids tend to interfere with the meds my wife had to take, and it was quite a juggling act to keep her blood work where he wanted it.

If the midwife has ethical issues with game meat, so be it. I highly suggest a second opinon from a qualified and experienced doctor before you proceed in any given direction. If wild game was so harmful to pregnant women, it would have to be from improper methods of storage or preparation-otherwise, there would not be a human race today. As always, this is the internet, and I have as much right to be wrong as anyone!

 

[atomchaser]

I think it is probably just a blanket statement since wild game does not get USDA inspected for disease/parasites/handling like commerical beef. If you have taken good care of an apparently healthy animal and cook appropriately, I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[dakotasin]

bs!
the game meat is healthier for her and your baby than that garbage they sell in the stores (that people buy, and actually think it is meat!).

 

[sumpnz]

Well, apparently this info my wife got was from my sister via her doctor. So who know what the biases and such were from that source. I do know my sister is/was a vegatarian (I think she now does eat poultry, but not red meat, pork, or fish). I'm thinking that CWD may have been the supposed issue but until I can talk to her I don't know for sure.

I did mention a lot of what you guys said as well as some other info I came up with on my own to my wife, and she seemed to think it made sense that elk was at least as safe as store bought. But, with her queasyness she's not likely to eat much if any elk until the second trimester anyway. Ironically fish, which becuase of the methyl-mercury is about the worst thing she could eat, is about the only meat she can readilly handle at the moment. Poultry especially is not a happenin' thing for her right now.

 

[dakotasin]

my wife had the worst time w/ puking for her pregnancies... the game meat sat a little better than other stuff - presumably because the lack of fat, but she essentially threw up for about 6 months straight... really hard on her to be pregnant.

on a tangent: she thinks she wants to go thru that again. i have no idea how a woman can do it... don't wanna know, either.

 

[rust collector]

Hate to even mention the v word, but textured vegetable protein (can you say soy burger) may be her best option in terms of comfort. After a few weeks of that, the elk will look a lot better.

Prenatal nutrition is serious business, and she needs to be comfortable with her balanced diet. There'll be time to eat the elk later, but now she needs easy digestibility and no mental baggage. She should be able to find some varieties of fish that runs lower in mercury content than salmon and some other chronic offenders.

 

[scout26]

You wife, her sister, the vegetarian midwife and the doctor's second cousin's neice's son (on her father's side) are absolutely correct. Game meat is bad. Please dispose of all that yummy, err, amm, I mean yucky, elk meat by sending it to me.

J/K

Properly butchered, stored (frozen/refrigerated) and prepared/cooked meat from any healthly animal is safe. Fish she does have to worry about.

Get a real doctor's (MD) opinion.

 

[sumpnz]

Slight correction there scout26 - my sister, not her's.

 

[RyanM]

One thing you do need to avoid when pregnant, that doesn't seem to be widely known, is honey in some cases. If there's a lot of (or any) tansy weed in your area, stay very far away from any "wildflower" honey made locally, and also assume that any "wildflower" honey that came from somewhere else has tansy in it.

Tansy weed contains a poison which is an abortificant, and that poison is present in tansy honey, apparently in a large enough dose that it could cause a stillbirth or abortion if enough is eaten.

On the other hand, feed her lots of eggs. Eggs contain large quantities of choline, which is vital for fetal brain development.

 

[Hobie]

I've got a freezer full of yummy elk meat. My wife is about 9-10 weeks pregnant. I suggested that she pull some elk steaks from the freezer for dinner the other night and she said that she'd read on several web sites that pregnant women are not supposed to eat any wild game meat. . Supposedly game meat is more likely to have parasites that are tough to kill with cooking that can affect pregnant women while being no big deal otherwise for guys and non-pregnant women. I call BS, but what say y'all.

Now granted, until she gets into the second trimester she's not eating much meat anyway (makes her even more queasy). This refusal to eat the elk at all though has put a damper on my ability to even cook the meat since most of the packages were cut assuming at least two people would be eating it.

I don't know about you but I wouldn't be here if my ancestors going back several thousand years hadn't had their fill of wild game during their entire lifetimes. That includes the matrilineal ancestors.

 

[svtruth]

Try Here

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?CMD=search&DB=pubmed

If it only gets you to the start, I typed in pregnancy AND wild game.
Only 8 hits, including one about non-invasive determination of pregnancy in black rhinos by analysis of fecal steroids.
Good luck.

 

[Dale Taylor]

Eat the elk. Is as safe as beef. Only worry is wasting syndrome. Dale L Taylor, M.D. Certified OB-GYN