Q. I am pregnant and have read a warning for pregnant women about Listeria. What is it?

A. In recent times, there have been several updates on the food-poisoning bacteria Listeria. This is important for:

• Pregnant women and their unborn baby
• People whose immune systems cannot fight off infections
• Older people over 70

Listeria bacteria are found widely in nature but they can be higher in things such as pre-prepared foods, raw foods or cooked foods which have been kept for some time after they have cooled down.

Here's the best thing for you to do. You can take precautions to avoid Listeria by:

• eating only freshly prepared and well-washed food
• following good food hygiene such as washing and drying hands
• reheating foods to 'steaming' hot
• refrigerating leftovers immediately and not keeping them any more than a day.

Check out the table below which lists the high risk foods to avoid and the safe foods to replace them with.

Some high risk foods become safe when cooked (soft and semi-soft cheeses) or reheated and served to steaming hot throughout (left overs)

For more information, go to FSANZ.