More than 14,000 adult men and women were surveyed from May 2006 to April 2007, for the Foodborne Disease Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet), to determine their eating habits, including high risk foods such as undercooked meat and eggs.
"There was such a variety of data, we thought it would be interesting to see whether there were any gender differences," said Beletshachew Shiferaw, a lead researcher on the study.
"To our knowledge, there have been studies in the literature on gender differences in eating habits, but nothing this extensive," the epidemiologist told the 2008 International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases in Atlanta, Georgia.
Researchers found that men were more likely to eat meat and poultry, especially duck, veal, and ham, and certain shellfish such as shrimp and oysters.
Women instead were more likely to eat vegetables, especially carrots and tomatoes, and fruits, especially strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and apples.
Women also preferre