What you can't do when you're pregnant

I am at our favorite fishmonger in West and order a box of oysters and delicious freshly smoked salmon. I'm going to unpack for a romantic dinner for two tonight. Next to me, a woman asks hopefully: ‘Which fish from this display can you eat when you're pregnant?’ ‘Uhm, actually nothing,’ the fishmonger replies. In slight panic, she goes through everything: the eel and mackerel have been vacuum packed, the freshly smoked salmon is still slightly raw inside, and oysters speak for themselves.

I think back to what I couldn't eat during my pregnancy and how happy I was when I could eat everything again. A week later, I talk to a pregnant friend who just had an extensive discussion with her mother. She said that everyone smoked back in her day, as long as you kept it to a maximum of four cigarettes a day (‘because the stress of not smoking was much worse’), but people also just drank a glass of red wine and without batting an eye, smoked salmon, eel, and mackerel were eaten. Has so much more been learned about nutrition and pregnancies in those thirty years, or are we being made a bit too afraid and will we soon be allowed to eat nothing?

I once heard a pregnant woman say that she couldn't eat a banana because it contains vitamin A. Sorry, but then in my opinion, you've heard the bell toll somewhere but have no idea where the clapper hangs. An excess of vitamin A is said to be bad for the little one, so it is recommended to consume vitamin A-rich products in moderation. For example: a banana contains 0.01 mg of vitamin A and pâté contains 75 mg, so go crazy on those bananas, I would say. But I was also completely panicked when it came to food. I had no less than three apps that I checked before eating something, only to go crazy when one app said I could eat something and the other said I couldn't. I'd rather be safe than sorry, so I just obediently stuck to that whole list of don'ts. But if you feel a lot happier after that one toast with stinky cheese or super fresh sushi in a good restaurant, then I would absolutely do that. That stress is, I think, a lot worse than that half glass of wine or little sandwich with pâté, every once in a while. It's certainly not that far yet, but until that second one is in sight, I am fully enjoying the whole assortment at our fishmonger around the corner.