A meal with a vulnerable relative: which foods pose a listeriosis risk?

After eating food confirmed to contain Listeria, fever, alone or with a headache, within the following two months requires medical consultation without delay. Mention the food eaten. This advice does not enable you to diagnose listeriosis yourself.

Listeriosis is an infection transmitted through contaminated food. It mainly affects older people, pregnant women, newborns and people with weakened immunity. Preparing a meal for someone in these groups calls for specific precautions when choosing foods.

For people at risk, Santé publique France advises avoiding foods including raw-milk cheeses, rillettes, pâté, foie gras, undercooked meat and raw sprouts. Prefer cheeses made with pasteurised milk and remove the rind from all cheeses.

Smoked or marinated fish, raw fish, tarama, raw shellfish and peeled crustaceans sold cooked are also among foods vulnerable people should avoid. Ameli also advises against raw or undercooked seafood for children under three.

Listeria survives cold and freezing and can multiply in a refrigerator. Contaminated food can still look and smell normal. Simply refrigerating or freezing it therefore does not replace choosing suitable foods.

Food selection complements hygiene: keep raw food separate from ready-to-eat food, wash hands and utensils after handling raw ingredients, and cook foods of animal origin properly. Cooked food can become contaminated again during handling.