Almost Every Kind of Wild Fish Is Infected with Worms (2016)
munchies.vice.com
munchies.vice.com
Most parasites in fish can't adapt to humans, most can be safely digested, and commercially frozen fish will only have dead ones. So sushi or cooked dishes made from commercially frozen fish is basically fine. Worst case: a dead animal is in your food, which is already a dead animal. Less than 40 cases of humans infected with fish parasites are found in the USA each year. Wild freshwater and semi-freshwater (like Salmon) are the most likely infected fish.
If you find wriggly worms in your take-out, you can actually remove the worms (yes, even if they are alive) and then cook the fish to an internal temperature of 145F for 15 seconds, and everything (larva + remaining worms) will be either dead or safe enough to eat. However, if this is takeout, and the worms are alive, you probably already ate live worms/parasites.
It's funny that Vice didn't even include the really gross parts. Some people report feeling a tingling sensation when they eat raw or undercooked fish. This is the worms moving around. Often you can remove the worms from your mouth or esophagus, or vomit, to prevent infection.
It might be safe but something about worms and parasites gives me the creeps. On top of that, it seems that many times the fish you order might not be the fish you receive. For someone that cares, I'm starting to find it confusing to keep up with what fish I want to avoid, and whether I should seek fresh or farmed, frozen, etc...
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/04/27/testing-shows-ma...
I think you really shouldn't consider it so much, though. A lot of work is put into minimizing how "unsightly" our food is and it results in a lot of waste. Fruit and veggies have more parasites than fish, for example, and consumer-facing fish gets a lot of prep work before you ever get to see it.
Unless you're susceptible to infection this is really about perception rather than health risks.
This is like the viral report of the kid who overdosed on caffeine a few weeks ago. And as someone said in the HN comments there: "this isn't a new silent killer."
Just like the dead fish parasites, though, it's not harmful.
https://www.bbbseed.com/blog%20images/Aphids%20Kale%20Judy%2...
Did not expect to see the rate this high.
On the other hand, I will take the flashing 90% infection rate with a grain of salt, for some reasons.
First because this rate is not useful if we count together fishes with a 500 worms load, and fishes hosting one single tiny 1mm long worm.
Second, because infection rate is heavily seasonal.
Third, because parasite distribution is patched. If we speak of a single type of roundworm some stocks could be heavily affected, but most of them aren't.
Mixing saltwater with freshwater and speaking of all parasites together the percent should be closer to 100%.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/05/sullied-seasoning-se...
A Kale sandwich (with a few grubs) is looking kinda good.
I initially suspected some Celsius-Fahrenheit confusion, but other sources corroborate these temperatures. Color me perplexed.
For what it's worth, I had fish last night. Cooked it 20 minutes at 180C. Was not shrunken or dry. Guess I'm doing it wrong?
In one study it was shown that refrigerated or frozen sushi had less aerobic mesophilic bacteria than freshly prepared sushi, and that the preparation varies between restaurants/chefs. But more people get bacterial infections from produce and rice than from fish.
On the culinary side of things, it can be easy to overcook certain fish, and other fish are much more lenient. Some of the most delicious tasting fish should be served raw or in-between raw and fully cooked. This way both delicate flavors and firm tissues don't break down completely.
For a typical salmon steak, 145C for 20 minutes is about right. The idea is to get it up to temperature, then remove it and cover it and let the residual heat keep cooking the fish for 10 minutes, allowing juices to settle back in (much like other meats). Alternately you can cook at a higher temperature for shorter time and apply a sear after. But in general, once the meat turns opaque all the way through, it's at the perfect state just a couple minutes later.
This challenges the conventional foodie wisdom that wild
is good and farmed is bad. But the science is clear, and
food regulators recognize this. Both the Food and Drug
Administration's recommendations and Oregon's food
regulations allow an exception for eating raw, never-
frozen farmed fish. In other words, it says that all raw
fish served in restaurants must be previosly frozen
unless aquacultured.
Mindlessly downvoting is not a valid answer.
"I talked to Ryan Roadhouse, chef-owner of the lauded Japanese restaurant Nodoguro and former sushi chef at Masu, about the incident with the worms. "My wife isn't from the United States," he said. "She's from Russia. The only way they trust fish, even frozen, is [if it's] salt-cured.""