Did You Know?

I learned something quite exciting today--most feta cheese sold in the grocery store is pasteurized!! Why is this exciting, you ask? Pregnant women are to avoid various foods, especially lunch meat and various soft cheeses because of the risk of listeriosis. It's bad stuff, not interested in getting it. Feta is always included in that category b/c traditionally it's unpasteurized and therefore any harmful bacteria would remain. I happen to love feta cheese and have of course avoided it (and brie, goat cheese, bleu cheese, etc) like the plague since learning I was pregnant. We had gourmet club tonight and the theme was "Farmer's Market". Looking over the menu I noticed that there was a lot of feta present, so I dreaded going almost b/c there would be quite a bit I couldn't eat. I recalled the nurse telling me way back when that some feta is pasteurized and that you just have to check the label. So while grocery shopping today for dessert ingredients (I had to make raspberry merengues with whipped cream and pistachios, which by the way were outstanding) I decided to check this out for myself. Sure enough, every single brand of feta cheese in the store was pasteurized. Wow. Who knew? So tonight I enjoyed some spanakopita that Myla made during appetizers --now, I trust Myla to use pasteurized feta b/c she is also pregnant and just as cautious as me and we had a whole discussion about it. And there you have it, I consumed some feta! Still felt a little weird doing it, b/c I had made myself forget how much I liked it, but thankful that this country sees a reason to zap bacteria before selling it in the grocery store. This, of course, does not mean that I'll order anything with feta in a restaurant or eat anything that anyone else prepares with feta b/c I won't know for certain...and we all know I like to be certain :)