Mmmmmm, Viruses!
I loved being pregnant with Baby A, but I sure did miss eating my favorite soft cheeses—goat cheeses, feta, and bleus—during those ten months.
In case you weren't aware, pregnant women should avoid soft cheeses because of the risk of listeriosis, or poisoning from listeria bacteria.
Expectant moms are supposed to avoid cold cuts, too, which can put a squeeze on your quick-serve choices. Pregnant and craving one of Arby's Market Fresh deli sandwiches? Sorry! In the mood for a Frescata sandwich at Wendy's? Most doctors and midwives will tell you to try something else.
Now it looks like there's a way to kill listeria in food before it's served—although the solution is kind of hard to stomach.
Last Friday the FDA granted its first-ever approval of viruses as a food additive. Seems a blend of six bacteria-killing viruses (bacteriophages) can be sprayed on cold cuts, hot dogs, and sausages to
combat common microbes, like listeria, that kill hundreds of people each year and can harm or kill fetuses.
"As long as it used in accordance with the regulations, we have concluded it's safe," Andrew Zajac, from the FDA's office of food additive safety, told Associated Press. People come into contact with phages through food, water, and the environment, and they are found in our digestive tracts, the FDA said.
Consumers will not be aware that meat and poultry products have been treated with the spray, Zajac added. The Department of Agriculture will regulate use of the product.
The maker of the virus spray, Baltimore-based firm Intralytix, sayd it also plans to seek FDA approval for another bacteriophage product to kill E. coli bacteria on beef before it is ground.