Scientists Find Worms in Almost Every Fish in a Tuna Haul – 96% Were Infected | Hacker News Reader

Scientists Find Worms in Almost Every Fish in a Tuna Haul – 96% Were Infected

sciencealert.com

43 pointsarto32 comments

It has already been known for a long time fish, and in particular tuna, carry a lot of worms and parasites, which is why freezing rules are in place in pretty much every country.

For example here are EU regulations regarding freezing Tuna

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=PI_...

Prob dumb question but what about sushi? I'm talking about the storied markets in Japan where they go bid on the fish fresh off the boat.

EDIT: Looks like the next thread down goes into this. It is flash frozen to kill the parasites, usually on the boat.

Pieter Hintjens (the ZeroMQ guy) died from bile duct cancer which he put down to parasites acquired after eating sushi in South America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Hintjens

Any angler will know that, in some lakes, it seems like every fish is full of worms. I've always dealt with that by frying the crap out of them -- no medium-rare bass for me, sorry. Alternatively, I'm sure they're fine after a few weeks in the freezer.

Rivers seem to be better, with worm presence (or at least, obvious worm presence) being less common. Additionally, I've never seen worms in bottom-feeding fish like catfish and carp.

>Additionally, I've never seen worms in bottom-feeding fish like catfish and carp.

no just the heavy metals you can see...

Everything in moderation! With the big predators you get mercury, with the bottom-feeders you get persistent lipophilic compounds like PCBs and PFAS.

I could just fish for perch, but what's the fun in that?

(I'm mostly kidding, I love fishing for perch too.)

Land based fish farms might be the future for seafood. Actually rooting for Nordic Halibut and Salmon Evolution.

Antibiotics of all sorts, runoff, etc... There's no magic panacea. Thai and Vietnamese shrimp farms have been known to kill of swaths of mangroves. This you can find from a Google search.

On a more anecdotal basis, I've also heard that Norwegian salmon is fed quite a cocktail of antibiotics etc and some people for that reason prefer New Zealand or Scottish salmon. Again this part I have no evidence.

So anyway my point is that it's definitely not as easy as it seems unless I misunderstand what "land based" means, I just assume they're fish farms not in the open sea but somewhere in a lake or an artificially made pool.

Bonus protein

Sell it as "protein tuna" and you can even markup the prices!

The protein tuna diet

I wonder how this will affect sushi ? Could people eating that get infected ? Seems in very rare cases the answer is yes.

I am from an older generation, I have never nor will ever eat sushi :)

So what makes raw fish safe is that the fish is froze at a temp for a period of time. Its different depending on temp and duration.

But the cold kills the parasites. Its why "sashimi grade fish" is safe.

> "sashimi grade fish"

This term has no legal definition and is unregulated. A fish caught, cut, and thrown on a plate as sashimi could be called sashimi grade having never touched a freezer to kill off parasites.

It won’t. sushi is flash frozen for exactly this reason

It doesn't, really - this is a known hazard. You want fish that was flash-frozen very rapidly after harvesting. It's tastier and it kills (these types of) parasites. Which is basically what you're going to get at any decent sushi place.

Never too old to try something that is incredibly delicious. :-) My mom (born 1943) introduced me to sushi. Can't blame generation there.

All sushi fish is frozen for some number of days to kill anything. I guess the only risk would come from somebody not doing there job properly, but I'm sure a sushi chef would notice a living worm parasite in the fish they are cutting

Yeah these are microscopic

I don't think that the Anisakis species discussed in this article would generally be considered microscopic, as demonstrated by various photos included in the article. The Trypanorhyncha larvae are smaller, but also likely to be visible without microscopy as well, on the basis of the scale I'm inferring from the included photos vs. the muscle striation in the tuna.

Larvae are tiny and translucent and mold with each jump from one host to the next,

I can assure you by direct experience than the adults colonies could pass for a noodless dish at the first look.

You can eat Sushi that is cooked, and there are even vegetarian rolls that don't have any fish. Sushi is quite good.

It's not a generational thing, at least not anymore. People older than you were eating sushi back when Western businesses started intensely transacting with the Japanese in the late 20th century (60s, 70s, 80s).

> have never nor will ever eat sushi

You're really missing out. It's probably my favorite food on the planet, lol.

Assuring than no undesirable worms reach the table, ever, is the main reason of Japanese having developed sushi. Every fish in Japan destined to be served as sushi is ultra frozen first

Futurama covered this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasites_Lost

First, bonito is not tuna. Second, the reason there is a season for bonito is because of the parasites.

Why is the headline trying to make it sound like it's new or a big deal?

That's a terrible sensationalist website btw...

Part of the story that says:

In 2020, researchers at the University of Washington found evidence that Anisakis worms in raw seafood have increased 280 times since the 1970s.

So that seems new or new-ish.

Is that why it's flagged?

Poor fish!

The culprits, in this particular case, are the fishermen.

Move over mahi-mahi, here comes maha tuna.

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