Sushi during pregnancy?
Sure!
The US Food and Drug Administration would have you believe that eating raw fish during pregnancy is as bad as ingesting Pine Sol. And it's not limited at fish, women that are preggers are also supposed to avoid like the plague, unpasteurized cheeses and alcohol.
Well, the French and the Japanese eat all of these things...and we all know how smart Japanese babies are.
Apparently, according to this NY Times article, the US is missing the boat.
The risk of falling ill from eating seafood (not including shellfish) is 1 in 2 million servings while the risk from eating chicken is 1 in 25,000.
Raw fish is generally safe, baring any cross contamination and assuming that the restaurant follows good safety practices, it is the shellfish that you have to watch out for.
"Most species used for sushi don’t have parasites anyway. Fish like tuna are not particularly susceptible to parasites because they dwell in very deep, very cold water, and sushi restaurants typically use farmed salmon to avoid the parasite problems wild salmon have. Most of the fish likely to have parasites, like cod and whitefish, aren’t generally used for sushi. Nor does pregnancy increase susceptibility to parasites. Healthy women who’ve been eating sushi are not at increased risk when they become pregnant. The same resistance and immunities function before, during and after pregnancy."
In other words, eat up ladies!
4 comments:
A girl I work with is preggers and was talking about the whole fish deal the other day.. must forward article!
Hmmm... Is there some special reason you're so moved by this article Sarah?
Scotty - It's very interesting, that's for sure! At least armed with that information, we can make our own informed decisions.
Anon - Ha, um...no. Not a chance.
I have a 4 year old son and I ate Sushi every 30 days on the nose when I was pregnent with him. He eats it as well. I have talked with many Doctors and they all have said Sushi is fine as long as you are not eating pounds of it in one sitting or eating it every day. We go about once a month or once every 2 months and the DR. said that was great. So I am excited. I think that all the worry put on Sushi is really just precautionary. I am sure people have been sick before, pregnant or not, so they are always going to put out warnings. I feel everything is great in moderation as long as you read up and use your best judgement.
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