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Comment by 1001101 | Hacker News Reader

Yes, it's from the crustaceans in the natural diet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astaxanthin for background on natural and synthetic forms of the pigmentation.

I don't eat meat, but watching a documentary on sea lice in farmed salmon made me lose my appetite for everything. Getting a little queasy just thinking about it.

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How do they remove parasites from sushi and poke fish?

Sushi grade fish is frozen at a specific temperature for a specific time period to kill parasites.

Also, there is no such thing as sushi grade.

In the USA. Sashimi (sushi is the rice) is never frozen in any decent restaurant in Japan, so the question remains unanswered...

If you find this is because it was farmed fish and farmer fish can't have this type of inner parasites that cause trouble. Although is true than can have more load of external parasites in skin or gills they are super-clean inside normally. Much cleaner than wild fishes.

I bet that most, if not all, decent restaurants in Japan ultra-freeze wild fishes on the other hand, even if they may not admit it.

My understanding is that for many fish species, the fish are caught well offshore on multi-day fishing trips. They are put on ice immediately, otherwise they return to the docks with spoiled fish. Think "The Perfect Storm".

> I bet that most, if not all, decent restaurants in Japan ultra-freeze wild fishes on the other hand, even if they may not admit it.

They (can, in some restaurants or if you ask) serve the head next to the sashimi and it is still twitching so you know it is fresh. So no, they don't.

So the parasites don't exist in Japan or they don't affect people who eat them?

> The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has issued an official warning on the rapidly growing number of Anisakis infections linked to eating raw or undercooked fish. [...] The ministry urges consumers to keep the fish frozen below minus 20 degrees for at least a day, or heat it for at least for a minute in temperatures exceeding 60 degrees, which should kill the larvae.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/05/12/national/scienc...

So kind of like flamingoes, then?

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