Salmon is often eaten raw.
Pacific and various types of river salmon must be properly cooked or hot smoked. The same is true for farmed salmon from freshwater ponds.
Farmed Atlantic salmon can be eaten raw, marinated, or cold smoked, but is best deep frozen. Wild Atlantic salmon must be deep frozen.
https://www.npr.org/2015/09/18/441530790/how-the-desperate-n...
You should never eat any fish or flesh cooked that you wouldn't eat raw.
But frequently even fishmongers and chefs themselves don't know the exact spicies of the fish they selling or serving. There is so much of mislabeling in that industry, so it's impossible to know without DNA testing.
I encountered even some celebrity chefs preparing raw dishes from freshwater fish.
Some even doing it to save money, knowing that it may cause liver cancer to their customers.
It's not that eating raw freshwater fish will always lead to the health problems, the fish should be from an endemic region, but it's still a lottery.
Heck, this isn't even true with vegetables. Kidney beans need to be properly cooked so they aren't toxic. One kidney bean is enough to cause stomach distress. This is the reason you shouldn't cook raw kidney beans in a slow cooker - they need boiled. Other legumes have this toxin, but in lesser amounts so it isn't as important and as such, safe with most cooking methods.
I recall reading that that’s extraordinarily rare these days, no pun intended. It’s often okay to cook pork medium rare (or lower).
You get similar differences with chickens: Not all areas require salmonella vaccines, and areas that don't have more cases.
I don't know how many times I've heard people say they need to cook their meat well or need the restaurant to cook it well to kill those parasites. Don't buy meat you don't trust the quality of! Don't go to restaurants where you think the meat has parasites!
Instead of repeating things by habit that they've been told, why can't people stop and think about what they are doing?
Thank you! I take care of what I eat and haven't had any food-related problems in many years. I'd rather skip a meal, buy something else, or go somewhere else, than buy something I think is infested.
As for pork meat, I prefer mine medium rare. There are regions and countries that have effectively exterminated pork-born parasites since decades, there is virtually no risk at all for getting parasites from pork within these regions. If you live in a region or country where this is not the case, you shouldn't buy pork meat at all. The parasites are still there, even if you kill them by cooking them. Do you want to eat that?
And one of those things is to simply not eat raw meat. It isn't about 'trust' but reality. You aren't going to know about the parasites, and the risk is mitigated through cooking. A lot of food-born pathogens are like this.
Put in another light: We pasteurize milk. Despite our best practices, raw milk will always pose a risk of severe food-born illness. The prudent answer isn't to 'find milk you trust' - it is all like this. The prudent answer is to drink pasteurized milk.
Same with meat. Properly cook your meat. Don't eat wild salmon raw if it hasn't been frozen. And so on. You can apply the same stuff to all food - none of it is 100% safe, and you simply won't be able to verify where it all came from. You won't be able to tell by looking or how much you trust the farmer that grew it.
Do you mean the parasite destructor process doesn't work on all species? If so, do you have some info on that?
There's just so much misinformation out there about food safety it's insane. If you understand basic hygiene and aren't immunocompromised, there's really not much need to be so terrified of food.
https://www.seriouseats.com/how-to-prepare-raw-fish-at-home-...
What you will find is that there are multiple sources with slightly differing times, even from reputable agencies. What I have stated is actually on the conservative side. Here's one source that is on the faster side.
https://scdhec.gov/food-safety-freezing-parasite-destruction
For instance the eggs need to be stored in the fridge because they are dipped in checmicals, the rest of the world is fine without doing that. Same with chlorine in the water, it's not necessary.
It's fairly common in parts of Europe to store eggs in the fridge too, not because they have to be stored in the fridge (like American eggs do), but because it makes them stay fresh longer.
My lack of organisation gave me several times the opportunity to try eggs stores eggs longer than that - maybe 50days - and never had a problem. The only outdated egg I can remember (they are easy to notice by smell !) was “fresh”, strait from the shop, probably small cracks in the shell…
Apparently tests have been done here and found our eggs were perfectly fine in a cake after a year in the fridge[2], but the taste of the egg itself changed a bit after 7 months. YMMV...
[1]: https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2023/03/norway-pushes-for-exe...
[2]: https://www.nrk.no/livsstil/eggene-varer-_nesten_-evig-1.759...
Regardless of the source I always crack it in a mug to give it a sniff first because you never know when you'll get a bad one the slipped through the cracks
Take Ivermectin or other parasite killer once or a couple times per year.
Also one of the main reasons for chlorine-washing eggs is to reduce the instance of salmonella. But the salmonella is only there because the US will not pass regulation requiring farmers to vaccinate hens, as Europe does.
https://waterandhealth.org/newsletter/new/summer-1998/disinf...
Is cold smoked salmon considered raw or cooked?
It is much safer to freeze even fresh caught salmon. If you are eating raw salmon at a commercial establishment, like a sushi restaurant, it was frozen.