Can I eat chorizo while pregnant?

The verdict

Chorizo is fine cooked and restricted cold, and the reason it confuses people is that two different products are sold under the same name.

The NHS names chorizo directly. Cold cured meats such as salami, pepperoni, chorizo and prosciutto should be cooked until steaming hot before eating, and they sit in the foods to be careful with rather than the safe list. Ireland's HSE names chorizo too, in its list of foods to avoid: cold cured meats such as salami, parma ham, chorizo and pepperoni.

The FDA and ACOG do not name chorizo but do restrict deli meats and luncheon meats unless reheated until steaming hot, and the FDA's listeria page names sausages among the foods through which listeriosis is contracted. FSANZ restricts cold ready-to-eat meats and raw or semi-cooked meat alike, with freshly cooked or thoroughly reheated as the alternative.

Every route leads to the same instruction: heat it.

The two chorizos

Knowing which one you have in your hand changes what cooking means, though not whether you have to do it.

Cooking chorizo, sometimes labelled fresh chorizo or raw chorizo, is a soft sausage sold in links or as loose meat. It is uncooked pork and must be cooked like any other sausage. The FSA lists sausages among the meats that must be cooked all the way through, because mincing moves bacteria from the outside of the meat throughout it, and the NHS says thoroughly cooked minced meat, burgers and sausages should have no trace of pink or blood after cooking. Mexican-style chorizo is generally this type.

Cured chorizo, the firm, deep red, sliceable kind, has been fermented and air-dried rather than cooked. It is shelf-stable and sold ready to eat, which is precisely why UK and Irish guidance names it. Spanish chorizo, both dulce and picante, is generally this type.

A useful physical test: cooking chorizo is soft, yields under a thumb, and is kept in the chiller. Cured chorizo is firm, hangs at ambient temperature in some shops, and slices cleanly.

Why curing is not cooking

Fermentation and drying make a product safe enough to sit at room temperature for weeks, which is a real achievement, but they are not the same as a heat step.

The NHS gives two reasons for the pregnancy restriction. There is a small risk of getting toxoplasmosis if you eat raw, undercooked or cured meat, which can cause miscarriage; and cold cured, ready-to-eat meats may contain listeria, which can cause listeriosis, which can in turn cause miscarriage or stillbirth or make a newborn seriously unwell.

Toxoplasma forms cysts inside muscle tissue, so it is not reached by anything applied to the surface. Listeria tolerates salt and cold better than most food poisoning bacteria. Between them, they are why a cured sausage is treated as a raw ready-to-eat food in pregnancy despite being perfectly safe for the general population.

What counts as cooked

The FSA's fully cooked standard is that the middle of the food should reach 70C for two minutes, or an equivalent such as 75C for 30 seconds. FSANZ's reheating standard is steaming hot at 75C.

For cooking chorizo, that means frying or roasting until it is firm, browned and no longer pink inside, with clear juices. Sliced coins should be sizzling and crisped at the edges rather than merely warmed.

For cured chorizo, it means cooking the slices until the fat renders and they crisp, or simmering them in a dish long enough to heat right through. Chorizo in a paella that has cooked for twenty minutes, chorizo in a stew, chorizo roasted with potatoes, chorizo fried into a hash, and chorizo baked on a pizza all clear it.

What does not clear it: chorizo slices on a tapas board, chorizo in a cold sandwich, chorizo scattered raw over a salad, and chorizo laid on a pizza after it comes out of the oven. Warming it through is not the same as cooking it, a point the FSA makes explicitly about cold-smoked fish and which applies identically here.

Chorizo and eggs, and other common dishes

Chorizo with eggs, huevos con chorizo, is a hot cooked dish and the chorizo in it is fine. The eggs are the part that follows egg advice: UK guidance permits British Lion or Laid in Britain eggs runny, while the FDA advises cooking eggs until yolks and whites are firm and FSANZ advises cooking eggs until both yolk and white are firm.

Chorizo in a paella, a jambalaya, a bean stew, a soup or a traybake is cooked through by the length of the cooking. Chorizo jam and chorizo-flavoured products such as crisps or shelf-stable snacks are processed products rather than cured meat and carry no equivalent restriction.

Chorizo-style vegan sausages contain no meat, so neither toxoplasma nor the cured meat rule applies, though chilled ready-to-eat plant-based products still belong in the fridge and within their use-by date.

Salt, fat and frequency

Chorizo is very high in salt and saturated fat, and cured chorizo more so than cooking chorizo because of the drying. UK healthy eating advice puts the adult salt limit at 6g a day, and NHS pregnancy diet advice is to eat a balanced diet while limiting foods high in fat, salt and sugar.

Used the way it is designed to be used, as a small amount that flavours a larger dish of rice, beans or potatoes, chorizo is a reasonable ingredient. As a plate of sliced sausage it is a lot of salt in a small volume.

If you have already eaten some cold

A few slices of cured chorizo is a low risk. Listeriosis and toxoplasmosis are both rare, and the NHS's position on foods that should have been avoided is that a small amount, if you did not become ill, is unlikely to affect your baby.

Watch for two different pictures over the following weeks. Toxoplasmosis is often symptomless, and where it shows it is flu-like: mild fever, aching, swollen glands and tiredness. Listeriosis, as ACOG describes it, can appear as late as two months afterwards with fever, chills, muscle aches and upset stomach, progressing in serious cases to stiff neck, headache, confusion and loss of balance.

NHS advice is to get help from 111 if you feel unwell after having food that should be avoided in pregnancy, if vomiting and diarrhoea last more than 48 hours, or if you have symptoms of listeriosis or toxoplasmosis. Say what you ate; both conditions are treatable and both are diagnosed on tests nobody orders without a reason.

Where guidance differs

Not much, and the differences are of wording rather than substance. The NHS names chorizo and says cook it until steaming hot. The HSE names chorizo and says avoid it, which for a cold cured meat amounts to the same practical advice unless you cook it. The FDA and ACOG restrict deli and luncheon meats unless reheated until steaming hot. FSANZ restricts cold ready-to-eat meats with reheating to steaming hot as the alternative.

Every authority accepts cooking as the fix. Chorizo is unusual among restricted foods in that its best-known uses, paella, stews, hashes and traybakes, are already cooked ones.