Sausage is a ubiquitous food popular for its spicy taste and crumbly texture. While people love it, it’s also a highly processed food rich in saturated fat, sodium, and nitrosamines. So, is eating sausage during pregnancy a safe option? The answer is yes, you can safely enjoy sausage when you are pregnant. That said, there are some food rules you need to follow to make sure you and your baby don’t get sick.

Can Pregnant Women Eat Sausage?

Yes, sausages are safe to eat during pregnancy. But like any other meat, you have to cook it at the right temperature and at the right time so that the meat is cooked to the core and there is no juice in it. However, as mentioned earlier, consuming it is safe, but not the healthiest option, as it may lead to some unwanted pregnancy complications. Therefore, it is recommended that you consult your doctor before incorporating it into your pregnancy diet.

Types Of Sausages: What Is Safe And What Is Not

Sausages are made from ground red meat or poultry and have a casing made from animal intestines. They can be fried, grilled, or grilled.

Processed meat products come in both raw and ready-to-eat forms. Fresh and smoked sausages are eaten raw, while dried, semi-dried, and cooked sausages are edible. Find out if you can eat each food

Fresh Sausage

Fresh sausages are chopped meat particles, usually cured and seasoned. The assortment includes fresh pork sausage, fresh beef sausage, breakfast sausage, whole pig sausage, and Italian sausage products.

Safety during pregnancy: Fresh sausage is safe to eat if you refrigerate it properly and cook it thoroughly. Undercooked sausage may contain Listeria and is therefore not safe to eat.

Cooked Sausage And/Or Smoked Sausage

Boiled or smoked sausages are made from minced or ground meat. They are seasoned, cooked, and/or smoked. This category includes liver sausages, hot dogs, bologna, cooked sausages, Brunswick, cooked Thuringia, and salami.

Safety during pregnancy: Do not eat seasoned sausage unless it is fully cooked and piping hot.

Dry And Semi-dried Sausages

Dried and semi-dried sausages are cured with salt and sodium nitrite, cultured, mixed with the ground or chopped meat, placed in casings, fermented, and then dried. Semi-dried sausages are partially dry. Spicy sausages, Lebanese bologna, and summer sausages all belong to this variety.

Safety during pregnancy: The fermentation process and lack of moisture often kill pathogenic bacteria in dried sausages. However, it is best to avoid dry sausage while pregnant, as several bacteria, such as E. coli, can survive dry fermentation. See more about Can I Get a Facial While Pregnant?

Benefits of Eating Sausage During Pregnancy

Sausage is known to contain amino acids, which contain high-quality protein, making it a healthy choice overall. It is also a rich source of vitamins, especially vitamin B12. Another key element found in high amounts in sausages is iron. This further complements keeping the level of hemoglobin in the blood at an optimal level, thereby preventing the occurrence of anemia. See more about Do Weight Gain During Ovulation

Side Effects of Consuming Sausage While Pregnant

Preterm Birth Or Miscarriage

Eating sausage during pregnancy can increase your risk of listeria. Listeria is a special type of bacteria that can affect pregnancy, leading to premature birth, miscarriage, and, in the worst cases, stillbirth.

Higher Chance Of Contracting Other Diseases

The symptoms of Salmonella infection are severe. Complications such as nausea, severe stomach pain, diarrhea, vomiting, and frequent dehydration may also occur if you eat sausage during pregnancy and contract salmonella. This may further exacerbate high fever and body aches. Another parasite that causes toxoplasmosis can cause premature birth, jaundice, and maternal cramps.

Heartburn

Eating a lot of spicy sausages can cause heartburn and you may lose sleep.

Pregnancy Complications

Microbes in meat have a high chance of surviving, which can lead to unintended pregnancy complications. Therefore, it is recommended that you cook it properly before incorporating it into your pregnancy diet and avoid any complications.

• 5. Increased sodium and fat levels in the body

Nearly 27% of sausage is made up of fat, of which 10% is made up of saturated fat. Likewise, 1.2% of sausage consists of sodium. Eating too much sausage can increase sodium and fat levels in the body and lead to unwanted complications.

7 Safety Tips To Eat Sausages

Food cravings during pregnancy can blind you to reason, but they can also lead to guilt after you’ve indulged in them. Here are some tips so you don’t feel guilty eating sausage:

• Eat the sausage while it’s hot. If you eat out, ask the supplier to reheat it for you.
• Don’t eat undercooked sausage.
• Refrigerate the leftover sausage and eat it within two days, but it must be reheated to steaming hot 
• Even if you buy precooked sausages, reheat them before eating them.
• Keep raw meat away from cooked food to make sure the juices from the raw meat don’t drip into other foods.
• Check labels for raw and ready-to-eat sausages.
• Choose foods that are low in sodium and flavors. 

When Can Pregnant Women Safely Eat Sausage?

Sausages come in many varieties, but the common factor is that they’re usually made of ground meat and spices that is processed in some way, from smoking to curing, to baking and boiling.

Because sausages are made of ground ingredients, they should always be cooked or heated up thoroughly before being eaten.

The outside of whole cuts of raw meat may have bacteria, but this is typically the area that is heated during cooking, so the bacteria are eliminated.

Bacteria on the surface of ground meat (or meat substitute), however, effectively gets ‘mixed in’ to the center of the sausage (yum). Furthermore, the meat may originate from various parts of the animal or from more than one part of it (source: Consumer Reports). There is a greater possibility of bacterial contamination.

The good news? Bacteria that cause disease are eliminated when sausage is fully cooked. Even after a sausage has been cooked and cooled, there is still a chance for bacteria to grow on its surface, especially if the sausage has been pre-sliced, which increases the surface area.

For these reasons, cooking or heating sausage of all varieties until it is “steaming hot” is safer.

Eat Dishes Or Recipes Containing Sausage In Pregnancy

Of course, sausages aren’t always eaten on their own. In no particular order, here are some common dishes you’ll find sausage in, and whether or not they’re safe for pregnant women to eat:

• pastry-wrapped (also known as a sausage roll). If they are freshly prepared and best served hot, these are safe for pregnant women to eat. Despite being delicious, sausage rolls are high in calories and saturated fat and should only be consumed in moderation during pregnancy.
• Sausage on a pizza is safe in pregnancy as these are cooked through when the topping itself is heated in the pizza oven. If you’re pregnant, you might want to read this article on the best pizza toppings, which outlines what to avoid.
• Sausage pasta is quite common, and is fine to eat if the sausage is hot and fully cooked. Although it usually is, it doesn’t hurt to double-check.
• Mcdonald’s sausages (for example, the ones you get in patty form in a You can learn more about whether or not McMuffins are safe to eat while pregnant by reading my pregnant woman’s guide to the McDonald’s menu.
• Grilled or BBQ sausage – this is best checked with a food thermometer (the best one I’ve discovered is here) because sausages frequently only get cooked on the outside. When consuming a grilled or barbecued sausage, there should be no pinkness and the sausage should be hot throughout.

Should A Pregnant Woman Eat Sausage Casings?

Although I’ve focused on the sausage fillings so far, I’ve also been asked if it’s safe to consume any type of sausage casing while pregnant.

It’s safe to eat most types of sausage casing while pregnant. This includes artificially made collagen casing as well as natural ones made from pig/hog/sheep intestines. This also holds true for the casing, as it is safest to consume sausages when they are hot and fully cooked.

On rare occasions, cured sausages in the style of salami may be found wrapped in plastic as opposed to a real, eatable skin. Compared to natural casings, they are more durable and robust. These need to go—not because of any particular benefit to expectant mothers, but rather because they are chewy and unpalatable.

Do Pregnant Women Need To Avoid Nitrates In Sausage?

To keep sausages from spoiling and to maintain a consistent color, nitrates such as potassium nitrate and sodium nitrite are frequently added. Natural nitrates, usually extracted from celery, are used by some manufacturers.

According to FDA recommendations, food should contain no more than 500ppm (parts per million) of nitrates (source: FDA). It’s important to keep in mind that nitrates are present in many foods naturally; people typically worry about nitrates that have been added.

There are currently no recommendations that specifically state that pregnant women should stay away from nitrates. When consumed at or below the recommended levels, nitrates are considered safe by both the European Food Safety Authority and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the USA.

Deli meats have a higher nitrate content than other foods, including dried, cured, and summer sausage. You can click here to read more about the nitrates in deli meat.

Can I Eat Expired Or Out Of Date Sausages While Pregnant?

Depending on your country’s food labeling laws, “expired,” “past best before,” and “beyond use by” all mean different things.

When you’re pregnant, it’s important to avoid foodborne illness, and avoiding expired or “out of date” food is one way of easily reducing your risk of getting sick. (source: NHS).

Fresh sausages (the type made of ground meat) should never be eaten past their expiration date as bacteria are far more likely to be present in raw, uncooked food (source: Scielo).

Sometimes sausage that has been cured, salted, smoked, or otherwise preserved, like salami, summer sausage, or similar types, will have very long shelf lives. This is frequently because of how much salt and preservatives are in the sausage.

In pregnancy, it’s safer to eat these types of sausages within the “use by” or expiration date and cook/heat them as you would normally.

Final Words

Sausages are eaten to satisfy appetite during pregnancy but do not provide any health benefits. Choose healthy alternatives to traditional sausage toppings. Adding fresh vegetables, herbs, whole grains like barley and homemade sauces that are limited in sodium can help you make healthy sausages.