Do Japanese Women Eat Sushi, Do French Women Eat Soft Cheese/Pate

[Inanna]

Tootoomany -That's it in a nutshell really This isn't about right or wrong. It's about risks and deciding what you will do about it.

Again - my concern is that women need to know the FACTS in order to make informed choices -

[Janie]

Um, I find it interesting that people assume that Japanese women eat so much sushi they can't go without it (etc etc)! And the French with their cheese..........

I have no idea what they recommend in Japan these days to pregnant mothers, but I have a step mother who is Japanese, and also a chef. She would go weeks without eating sushi, it is not that big a part of daily life. (Goodness knows why, her sushi is devine LOL!). There are soooooo many other parts to Japanese cuisine, as I'm sure there are many other things for French women (who are pg) to eat other than soft cheese.

Fiona, if you're truly interested I can ask her next time we speak to ask her niece in Japan who recently had a baby.

[Bathsheba]

I know that French and Japanese cuisine is a lot more varied than these foods Fiona gave as an example... but I think her sentiments are (correct me if I'm wrong)... are that some cultures have food types and preparation methods that would make you assume their antenatal mortality should be skyhigh... but it doesn't appear to be... so, just in the spirit of staying on topic (and avoiding the debate that we've been having in here)... I wonder if some cultures (besides those in the Developing countries with their poor hygiene)... do the French and Japanese have higher mortality rates due to Listeria and other forms of food poisoning? Say... compared to Australia.

[Inanna]

I don't agree it would be sky high Bath...

Listeriosis is a risk but a small one. However, since the 80's when it was discovered that listeriosis causes stillbirth & miscarriage that is when the advice not to eat at risk foods was brought in. Its a precaution to be mindful of. Kinda like caffeine and alcohol. It wasn't known in the 60's/70's how harmful it can be to fetal growth/development/wellbeing... Does that mean we snub the knowledge just because our bodies crave a beer? Again, the answer to that question would be up to the individual woman. Let her have the knowledge - the facts and then make her choice for her body and her baby. But the key here is knowledge.

Stillbirth & miscarriage rates are high - if they can be reduced by not eating at risk foods that can only be a good thing (at least from my vantage point anyway).

So, it would be interesting to know what the rates of listeriosis related loss is in those countries. However, let's remember there is a little more to the French diet than soft cheese. Having also spent time in Japan - might I say Sushi wasn't really high on the diet... So that may in part answer the OP's question...

[Toomanytoomany]

do the French and Japanese have higher mortality rates due to Listeria and other forms of food poisoning? Say... compared to Australia.

I did find a study that suggested that better education and removal of listeria sources in foodstuffs have led to a significant decrease of listeria in France. So I guess we've made an assumption that the French are not routinely educated about or act on listeria risks that is not true! Here's the abstract if anyone is interested.

All I've been able to glean from Australian data is that the infection rates are less than a hundred per year, which is very, very low. I guess like the Reye's syndrome thing, it's a very rare occurrence that is nevertheless quite easy to prevent by following some simple guidelines about food.

[Bathsheba]

Thanks for finding that abstract TM.

I wasn't suggesting the rates were or weren't skyhigh... just pondering. Food preparation methods (like drinking unpasturised milk... not just soft cheese made from unpasterised milk etc is what I meant). there would be people here in Australia who own cows... and use the milk from them fresh... i guess this could be a risk too?

I'm not totally dismissive of the food recommendations BTW I definitely acknowledge the value of them... it's just that I've witnessed too many pregnant women taking greater risks in eating foods that are apparently OK... but I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole!!!! Like "Oh I know I can eat Cheddar cheese... I might just cut myself a piece despite the fact that I don't know how long it's been on this platter for... or whether the person that prepared the platter even bothered to check the used by date". Or women that eat crap food like KFC daily because "at least it's safe".

[Inanna]

It is a risk Bath - drinking your own cows milk. But yep there are those that do it. I actually am all for "Raw Milk" as I believe the benefits are huge. However the risk to an unborn child is enough for me to steer clear whilst pregnant. When not pregnant my family drink raw milk - from organic cows...

[Bathsheba]

You'd think there'd be quite a significant number of pregnant women in developed countries that drink milk fresh from cows... especially in Europe (France). And to be honest... if I lived in a French village I probably would too... and be waaaay more concerned about a bottle of pasturised milk that been left out all day which i wouldn't touch. Japanse women might not consume sushi every day but rice would still be their staple... do pregnant women there avoid using rice if it has cooled down and been kept for a day? I think I'm sounding argumentative LOL I suspect deep down I'm a food purist... who can easily imagine a time when we all may have to 'resort' to living off their own locally available and grown foods (yay!). If society crumbled tomorrow and we couldn't get our wide choice of safe foods then there's going to be helluva lot of scared women. Even if we had to sustain a long blackout (like they did in SE QLD recently)... if pregnant women can't bring food to boiling point then there could be mass alarm. I guess what I'm saying is that YES the foods on the Best Avoided list are there for a reason, I don't think it should necessarily cause a sleepless night if a woman inadvertantly injests an "Avoid" food.