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

I'm so happy to know these facts and that people share them on bellybelly - and add their insights and explanations. I would be devastated to find out I ate something that harmed my baby - and it would be worse if that something was known by few/some/many/all but me to carry a risk to a fetus. I under stand applying common sense about food handling as well - but I think this is as an added layer of protection - not "instead of" the foods that have been shown to potentially carry listeria or salmonella, etc. This information is put out there to serve and educate mothers-to-be - I'm thankful for it and for the progress of science generally - both in terms of understanding better what may impede the delivery of a happy and healthy baby..and in my case, hopefully even giving me the ability to have a baby.

Of course, if I read on the internet for the first time about a food being bad and it didn't jive with anything else I knew, I'd look into it/ask my dr or midwife to make sure it wasn't something like an old wives' tale.

Also, Flowerchild - I am glad you mentioned that about pasteurizing - I can easily see thinking that something was pasteurized and therefore not a risk - even though now that I think about it more carefully, what you are saying seems almost obvious - but it wasn't to me!

Sorry if someone has already stated this ( I don't have time to read the whole thread) but unpasturised cheese IS available in Australia now - albeit limited and very expensive! Just keep this is mind if you choose to eat soft or blue cheese (and some hard now) that you can enquire as to wether or not unpasturised milk was used.

Grana and reggie are also made (in Italy so the real stuff) with unpasturised milk, but are then hard cooked (hot) so that is how this one slipped through the system.

It is illegal to make cheese with unpasturised milk in Australia so if this is a concern for you, support the local industry.

Tootoomany -That's it in a nutshell really :clap: 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 -

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. :)

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.

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Grana and reggie are also made (in Italy so the real stuff) with unpasturised milk, but are then hard cooked (hot) so that is how this one slipped through the system.

It is illegal to make cheese with unpasturised milk in Australia so if this is a concern for you, support the local industry.

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I didn't realise that re the bolded cheeses. I'd love to have a go at making cheese one day. Do you know, the rind off a good smelly bit of grana padano makes the absolutely BEST flavouring for a hearty minestrone. Just chuck it in half an hour before serving. Yum.

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...

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

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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.

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".

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...;)

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.

I totally agree Bath - it shouldn't cause emotional distress - but it usually does - especially when one has experienced loss. It does make one hypervigilant - for better or for worse! :rolleyes:

I too am a purist - however we cannot avoid the reality that listeriosis is a caause for fetal death and we can choose if we will risk it or not understanding the risk... I hope that made sense! :redface:

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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).

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My mother-in-law was brought up on a German (mainly dairy) farm. They would only drink the milk straight from the cow. Her mother and brother's family (DH's Oma) still live on that same farm, and the family STILL drink the milk like that. I was so careful everytime (during pregnancy) I visited the farm and made sure i had nothing with milk in it.
Funnily enough - Oma had 8 kids (i think) and almost all of them are lactose and wheat intolerant. only finding out in their late teens/adulthood.

Bath, when I lived in Japan, the rice was cooked daily. I don't think I ever saw rice reheated. It never lasted that long TBH, they ate a lot of rice! So it would be kept warm in the rice cooker and served as needed. Then another batch cooked, probaby 2 -3 times a day.

I don't know about Japan, but we have never keep rice overnight either. My mum has probably never even heard of listeria but whenever I was pg I was only allowed to eat rice piping hot too. She would have a fit if I ate cold rice. Even now she insists that her younger grandchildren cannot eat rice that been left sitting until it's gone cold (as compared to cooled after being served hot).

Hoobley, I aim every day to not cause harm - be it emotional or physical... It appears that I have caused you pain by my response to your post. I wanted to "speak" to you publicly as to me it's important for others to understand my stance.

I need to be honest - for it is not my responsibility to be dishonest in order to save your pain either. I feel your comments were insensitive because before we speak we need to think of who is hearing our words and how they will be processed. As a speaker that is our responsibility - hence my responsibility is to now be clearer about my response!

If you were responding to a post that was in regard to infertility and that eating pork increases the risk of infertility... In this thread women that were suffering infertility were replying. I came along and said: "well I'm growing increasingly tired of this post and I have suffered from infertility but I still ate pork and look I have a baby... It is my belief that some women just can't have babies..." ( I know your words were different - I am trying to paint the picture) How would that be heard?

Okay all of that would be true and valid - but would it be appropriate? I believe it would not.

Infertility is painful - women don't want it brought up that "some women just can't have babies"... When you are trying to keep the faith - for some women hearing that just sucks... Miscarriage and loss is painful - holding a dead baby in your arms is gut wrenching - having someone tell you "it's just not meant to be" sucks.

As you well know M & L is my "baby" - I protect my "cubs" with a passion - and the other night I responded quickly and swiftly and the way I couched my response clearly hurt you. I was propelled by my inbox, by the fact that I had just spent 2 hours with a woman who had just discovered her 16week old fetus was dead... So we all come from our own place when we respond - however I am responsible for my words and my intent wasn't to harm you. Rather it was to quickly and swiftly point out that your words were heard in a hurtful manner.

I think you B are a legend - I can think something you said was not okay without thinking you are not okay. Does that make sense? I will not and cannot agree with you always - or anyone. But, honestly stating my Truth I believe is important. However, clearly I should have been less quick to respond and kinder in my language.

How do I see the world? Well, I believe that we all come into this life from a past one (unless we are very unucky;)) and I think we have lessons, I think we have Karma attatched to our Being. I don't think someone is driving our car so to speak. I don't believe in God in the sense that religions do.. I actually do believe "that all is just how it should be". But that does not mean I have no control at all over my path. There are many roads to the end of our journey's - sometimes we choose the tough path and sometimes when we listen to our intuition and our Guidance we can make it a little easier. The lessons are the same - just how we learn them may be different. Had I listened to my intuition I would not have said Goodbye so many times...

There is an Arabic proverb that says something to the effect of: "Trust in Allah - but tie up your horse first"...

So, I hope that this explains myself to you - again you do not need to "reinstate" anything. I can disagree with you without disliking you. They are not the same thing!

So, Hoobley (and anyone else that felt my response was OT) thankyou for the lesson in waiting and not responding quickly! Thankyou for valuing me enough to take time to write to me. Thankyou for being the wonderful BB member of my Village that you are!

Merry Christmas to you Hoobs - and know I send you love and hugs across the waves... :hug:

ETA: Sam is right I am approachable!..;)

Flowerchild!

You know, i had unsubscribed, thank GOODness i was surfing and saw you'd posted again!

I really liked this:

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If you were responding to a post that was in regard to infertility and that eating pork increases the risk of infertility... In this thread women that were suffering infertility were replying. I came along and said: "well I'm growing increasingly tired of this post and I have suffered from infertility but I still ate pork and look I have a baby... It is my belief that some women just can't have babies..." ( I know your words were different - I am trying to paint the picture) How would that be heard?

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Because even though the example is different, it does illustrate the reason for your hurt so much more clearly, thankyou! It is sometimes so hard to delineate, isn't it, between personal and general feelings. I was so wrapped up in trying to explain why i had the attitude i did, i didn't think for a second that someone who was NOT in or about to come from the place i'm at could actually be tripped up and really hurt by my unintentional insensitivity! Sometimes i really need to pull my head out of my...well, you know! One of my parents had a very "you might be hurt but i never meant to hurt you so it's your problem" attitude at times and it's something i can fall victim to myself, speaking loudly before thinking about how it will be taken by others. Especially ridiculous when you consider their advice following my second loss ("at least you know you can get pregnant") was so incredibly painful for me.

This also is gold:

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There is an Arabic proverb that says something to the effect of: "Trust in Allah - but tie up your horse first"...

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And it reminded me of my maternal grandmother. Nana was a very plain-speaking woman, and i can remember once her neighbour, who my nana sort of tolerated in that strained polite-but-hating-it-and-looking-down-her-nose kind of way that the previous generations did, dropped her lit cigarette into her own lap and when she saw the sparks begin to glimmer in her skirt fabric screamed "Jesus help me!" and my nana tossed her cup of lukewarm tea onto her lap and said grimly "Jesus helps those that help themselves!". :lol:

I'm glad you responded quickly, even if i was upset because haste made you sharper than you intended, because imagine all those women who emailed or PM'd you hurting and hurting and feeling there was no-one in their corner. I'd rather have a cry that them cry, because my words hurt them, however unintentional it was, those SHOULD be my tears, not theirs. To all those women i hurt, i'm so sorry my thoughtlessness caused you pain, especially at this time of year. We all respond to the pain of loss differently but whatever i decided to do with it, i have felt that pain and i should know better than to post thoughtlessly as i did.

That poor woman you spoke of. I can't imagine what she must be going through. :( And i can definitely see how that would have hastened your reaction to my unthinking idiocy. I agree completely that one can think someone has DONE wrong without them BEING wrong across the board, and i actually find more value in talking to those who feel differently to me. It's comforting to find support and challenging to find opposition but what value has the unquestioned belief?

Thank you Deb, for this, and for my love and hugs. I'm sending you a fresh-baked batch right back. I am so so glad i wrote to you. Of COURSE i value you. Part of my devastation was that i'd hurt someone i didn't know well but respected so hugely.

It's Christmas Eve as i write this, and i'm about to tuck DD up and tell her one last time about how santa will come and fill her tights (don't ask - couldn't get a stocking!) with presents. You're all about to get up and begin your Christmas Days. Merry Christmas Deb, I hope santa stuffed your tights FULL. :)

Love

Bx