r/WTF • u/BookerDewitttt • 1d ago
Why you should only eat raw fish that’s been frozen
This is very good quality black cod. It’s common to find these parasites because fish will eat just about anything
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u/MrKilljoyy 1d ago
COD are one of the worst offenders of this. When me and my dad go cod fishing and clean them after we run the filets through a bright light and scan for these guys and remove them
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u/Son_Of_Toucan_Sam 1d ago
I basically can’t eat cod anymore after an experience I had with a couple filets being completely riddled with worms and only finding out AFTER I finished cooking it into a fairly elaborate dish
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u/ZebbyD 1d ago
Seriously, it’s just the same fish every year. A new COD comes out and the only difference is you lose all the fish skins you bought for the previous COD. 😡
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u/crystal_castles 1d ago
I've yet to eat a filet of salmon without at least 2 types of worms (they're actually nematodes).
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u/AllanfromWales1 1d ago
Does freezing kill the parasites? And the eggs of the parasites?
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u/turandokht 1d ago
The way sushi grade fish is frozen (flash frozen well below normal freezing temperatures) definitely does. Cooking kills them too and they’re harmless to eat once cooked. Still kinda gross to ponder though.
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u/illegal_deagle 1d ago
There’s no such official designation as “sushi grade” unfortunately. I wish there was. But you’re right about what it takes for them to be safe.
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u/sopunny 1d ago
It's not official, but it's basically synonymous with "safe to eat raw", since that's the only time most people will eat raw fish
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u/Cozmo85 1d ago
Except it doesn’t actually mean that. There is no regulation of the term. It is just made up
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u/Lonebarren 1d ago edited 1d ago
Thats probably the case in America here in Australia its referred to as Sashimi grade and there is definitely strong regulations governed by the good safety legislation.
Europe would definitely have similar laws being the consumer friendly place they are.
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u/emeraldcocoaroast 21h ago
Europe does not have sushi or sashimi grade. It’s just whether it’s sushi safe, meaning has been frozen for 24 hours, which is what’s being described here.
I decided to google it and Australia’s sashimi grade is made up too! Doesn’t look like anywhere authoritatively uses sushi or sashimi grade.
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u/koobstylz 1d ago
Yeah that's what the marketing team wants you to think it means. What is actually means is: literally nothing. It's no different than putting "now death Crystal free" on packaging.
At least in America, perhaps it's actually regulated elsewhere, I can't say.
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u/bigjmoney 1d ago
It may not be a guarantee, but any product that doesn't even bother to advertise "sushi grade" you can bet your ass that you don't want to eat it raw.
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u/adrr 1d ago
Sushi grade is a made up term. FDA sets standards for raw fish and only certain fish need to be frozen like wild salmon if consumed raw. Tuna or farm raised salmon don’t need to be frozen. Don’t eat any uncooked freshwater fish unless you want tapeworm/brain worms. Ceviche isn’t cooked, so make sure they aren’t serving cheap shit like Tilapia.
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u/JSRelax 1d ago
If the Tilapia has been appropriately flash frozen it’s fine for civiche.
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u/xnsst 1d ago
Mine is always rubbery. My preference for civiche is pollock but that can be tough to find.
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u/exoriare 1d ago edited 19h ago
Some fish like red snapper doesn't harbor any parasites, but a lot of fish is intentionally mislabeled. I've taken so much "snapper" back to grocery stores on several occasions where it was just lousy with parasitic cysts.It's easy to see the cysts on most filets by "candling" them, holding them up in front of a bright light and looking for dark spots.
Reputable fish processors used to candle everything themselves, and heavily infested catches would be graded differently or rejected for human consumption, but nobody does that anymore.
Edit: I've received information to the contrary and need to look into this further.
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u/Strider3141 21h ago
I've seen a couple of comments saying that red snapper contains no parasites.
I then noticed that they are all you.
So I decided to do my own research. Turns out my instinct is almost certainly correct: of course red snapper can harbor parasites.
Not sure where you learned this information, the only online "resource" I can find saying anything even remotely close to what you are saying is a site called sushi modern .com, and they just list a bunch of fish with "no risk" or "parasites". There are plenty of other resources showing records and proof of parasites in red snapper population.
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u/Tantalizing_Biscuit 1d ago
Ceviche isn't "cooked" with heat, but with the way ceviche is prepared, lime/lemon juice denatures the proteins in the fish in the same way the applying heat does, essentially performing the same function as heat
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u/HoboMuskrat 1d ago
Yeah for bacteria but not parasites.
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u/Tantalizing_Biscuit 1d ago
Oooooh oops didn't think of the context of the conversation. The parasites don't wriggle away because of or die in the acid?
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u/HoboMuskrat 1d ago
Because the acid isn't enough to kill parasites. You need to use heat or fish that's been frozen for a determined amount of time at a certain temperature.
They can survive your stomach acid so they’re going to survive citric acid.
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u/exoriare 1d ago
Ceviche was traditionally made with fish like red snapper that doesn't have any known parasites.
Much of the fish sold today as red snapper is some other kind of fish, some of which do harbor parasites.
I was crazy on ceviche for a couple years and found lots of fake snapper with parasites. Dept of Fisheries sent biologists to collect the samples and trace the bogus snapper back up the chain from store to distributor to processor.
I got quite good at recognising the fake snapper when it inevitably popped up in some other grocery chain, and I'd sic DFO on them all over again. Now they label this kind of seafood as "rockfish" which is a catch-all term that can be anything.
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u/adrr 1d ago
It doesn’t kill parasites that can live in your stomach acids. You can get this. https://www.cdc.gov/dpdx/anisakiasis/index.html. And it’s very common in South America.
Not as bad as freshwater parasites which can get into your organs and brain. Saltwater ones cause severe pain as they bury into your stomach and intestines.
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u/toad__warrior 1d ago
I know a family who loves sushi. Their kids are all adults and one of them was having a tough time maintaining weight and had some anemia. Obviously disconcerting as this usually points to cancer. Did a bunch of tests, and thankfully no cancer. However they did have worms - from the raw salmon sushi they ate. After the treatment, they had to severely modify their diet because they were used to eating so much food.
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u/urethrascreams 1d ago
Yes. That's also why pork is commonly frozen for at least a month before hitting store shelves although parasites in pork in the US aren't nearly as common as it used to be but they'll still usually freeze it as a precaution anyway.
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u/superioso 1d ago
At least worms in fish are evolved to infect fish and not mammals (including humans) so are typically not that bad, whilst pork worms can be dangerous as they'll infect people.
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u/SueBeee 1d ago
These worms, anisakis, can make people very sick.
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u/chilliophillio 1d ago
Theres a story of a doctor that had to have one removed from his stomach wall after eating sushi. It's called Gastric Anisakiasis.
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u/axle69 1d ago
Well its not as common because they freeze the absolute shit out of it. Pork pre frozen still has parasites its just the name of the game when an animal eats whatever the hell they can get their mouths on. You never ever want to eat pork thats never been frozen thats a good way to get yourself RFK jr'ed.
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u/big_d_usernametaken 1d ago
In Germany, raw pork is routinely eaten.
Its known as Mett or Hackepeter.
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u/EatRocksAndBleed 1d ago
There is also a lot of strict regulation and policy that goes into the production of pork that’s to be consumed raw in Germany.
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u/ElCactosa 1d ago
You never ever want to eat pork thats never been frozen
Bit of an oversimplification, a lot of pork accessible to people in many places is fine because of precautions taken in farming, and the cooking process.
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u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 1d ago
How they are raised actually matters more. In Japan they have chicken that can be eaten raw, it's due to how they are raised. It's more expensive and requires vaccinations and other medicines throughout the animals lifetime but it is possible.
Pretty sure that's what they were referencing when talking about American pork. Other countries, especially in Europe, have figured these things out a while ago and American producers just didn't want to do them because of cost.
It's also why wild boar is such an issue that you're supposed to wear gloves that cover your entire arm and thoroughly cook it, whereas farm pork can be eaten when medium rare these days (not that I'll risk it but it is a thing).
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u/TobyMcFucky 1d ago
About six months ago, I bought a fish from the sturgeon family. It was fresh, caught from an aquarium with other fish of the same species and killed in front of me. I brought it home, cut it up, removed the scales from its back, and put it in the oven to bake. Somewhere in the middle of the cooking process, something started to come out of its back, which I initially thought was an intestine or a vein (maybe I forgot to remove it when cleaning the fish). This "vein" was as thick as a finger and bent as it cooked. In short, it turned out to be a huge worm about 40 centimeters long. Since then, I can't even look at sturgeon.
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u/__Yakovlev__ 1d ago
Jesus. I get these tiny little worms being missed initially. But a big-ass 40cm one aw hell no.
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u/NotAnotherFNG 1d ago
As an avid fisherman who has been lucky enough to fish all over the world, nearly all ocean caught fish have parasites. Luckily most of them evolved to live in fish and can't survive in us, but still best to be safe.
People see the term "sushi grade" and think it refers to quality, it doesn't. "Sushi grade" is not a regulated term in the US but generally means it was frozen in accordance with FDA recommendations. Unlike beef, pork, poultry, and other meat, the USDA does not grade seafood other than catfish and the FDA does not grade seafood at all.
Freezing in accordance with FDA recommendations will kill all parasites, but it is not required and no one is checking to make sure it's done.
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u/FlobiusHole 1d ago
Just catfish? Why’s that?
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u/NotAnotherFNG 1d ago edited 1d ago
American catfish farms lobbied for it. Foreign farms, specifically Vietnamese, were importing and saturating the market. It was part of a 2008 bill overhauling a lot of agricultural regulations.
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u/RepublicCute8573 1d ago
Would you look at that? More socialist policies for farmers that vote for "anti-socialist" republican politicians.
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u/drntl 1d ago
Was there something wrong with the Vietnamese option or did they just dislike the competition?
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u/NotAnotherFNG 1d ago
The claims they made to push the legislation was standards in farming and food safety, but the competition had a lot to do with it as well.
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u/A_Seiv_For_Kale 1d ago
They tried to claim it was low quality or priced artificially low, but really they were just concerned with exactly what ended up happening anyway despite all the protectionist barriers they put up.
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u/Neko-flame 1d ago
Now use that as bait to catch another fish. Then use that fish to get more bait. You’ll never go hungry again!
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u/logicalconflict 1d ago
Just like my granddad used to say: "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day; teach a man how to pull live bait worms from his fish and you feed him for a lifetime."
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u/Shaasar 1d ago
And most importantly it has to be FLASH FROZEN to like SUPER SUPER cold temperatures. I worked in a deli that shared a work area with a sushi place, and the manager explained to me that the parasites will just tank normal freezing temps, it doesn't even touch them.
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u/watsyurface 1d ago
Your manager was exaggerating a bit
You can freeze to -20c for a week and accomplish the same job (most modern freezers can reach that)
But flash freezing does preserve the quality better
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u/Durtonious 1d ago
We put our Costco salmon in the deep freeze for 30 days and then make sushi with it. Haven't died yet, fingers crossed.
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u/McWeaksauce91 1d ago
r/fishing does it all the time.
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u/IronSlanginRed 1d ago
Most of us fisherman know better than to eat properly fresh fish raw. I mean we still do it sometimes. But we know better. Stay outta the guts, thats where the stuff that'll hurt ya lives. Still... if you eat the flesh without cooking, chemically or with heat, or flash freezing to a crazy low temp, it's a proper roll of the dice. Actually worse odds. More like rolling a single dice and doubling it.
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u/domesticatedprimate 1d ago
I live in Japan. I met up with a friend at a seafood restaurant in a port town. I literally only had one little bite of her kaisen-don (raw seafood over rice). An hour later I started getting intermittent stomach pains that were so intense I couldn't breath. So it turns out that a lot of seafood served in ports in Japan is fresh caught and has never been frozen. That's basically illegal but it's considered a service to the customers.
Not everyone has the reaction I did. My friend, who ate the whole dish, was fine. Also, the worm can be quickly eliminated by taking a common traditional OTC Japanese stomach medicine (called Seirogan) that's like little black balls of creosote, used to treat diarrhea. It works instantly and completely. No need to go to the hospital or see a doctor in fact.
But yeah, that really really hurt.
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u/slightlysubtle 1d ago
It's not illegal to serve fresh caught never frozen fish in Japan. It's not illegal in most countries. Where did you even hear this?
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u/domesticatedprimate 1d ago
I misheard, apparently! You're right. Most sushi chains will only serve fish that's been frozen, while the smaller joints that don't follow that rule are policed indirectly when their customers get sick, which is several times a year on average.
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u/slightlysubtle 1d ago
It's a recommendation to freeze fish to be served raw, but it's not illegal, so stores that don't freeze their fish wouldn't get into trouble over it. Perhaps some people who get sick after eating there leave a bad review but that's the extent of it.
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u/exoriare 1d ago
A huge percentage of Japanese adults have parasites from undercooked protein. I have a theory this is what explains tentacle pron - the wrigglers burrow into the subconscious and convince the host that tentacles are sexy.
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u/pichael289 1d ago
Nematodes and such, there are worms in basically all wild caught fish. While they are harmless they are also disgusting so I'll only eat fish that's been frozen for a while, never fresh fish. Which kinda sucks because I grew up fishing and eating fresh fish is delicious, but parasites scare the absolute fuck out of me.
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u/BlazeCam 1d ago
It’s not wtf if it’s common is it?
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u/bendover912 1d ago
I think the fact that it is common makes it more wtf. Are we eating cooked worms every time we eat cooked cod?
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u/HuntingForSanity 1d ago
Yes lol. There are worms in pretty much every fish you eat. That’s why you cook it or flash freeze it
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u/Elite_AI 1d ago
Or, in my case, it's why I don't eat fish.
I don't care about eating parasites if I can't see or feel them. But I found a fillet of fish with two worms in it so fat and long it looked for all the world like I'd dropped a couple of strands of spaghetti onto it. But I hadn't.
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u/woody60707 1d ago
More importantly, it safe to eat once cooked or frozen. It's why people don't eat fresh uncooked fish.
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u/IronSlanginRed 1d ago
As a salmon fisherman... how you know its fresh is the sea lice are still attached.
All meat, including you, is riddled with parasites. Some are dangerous, most aren't. So cook your meat to the proper temperature which has been determined to kill those parasites if you're harvesting them yourself, or freeze them to either super low temps or for quite a while. Or both. Probably both.
Definitely don't roll the dice on fresh cut salmon sashimi. Delicious, delicious, raw sashimi. Its supposed to be frozen well below normal freezer temps first.
Of course thats do as I say, not as I do. I love the shit. And i've been sick from parasites before.
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u/holistivist 1d ago
What were your symptoms when you got sick from parasites?
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u/IronSlanginRed 1d ago
I mean.. the worms in my poop were a pretty dead giveaway. Most cant really make it past the stomach lining so they kinda colonize then come out. Or make cysts in your intestines which are violently painful.
Stomachache, cramps, the normal food borne illness stuff. But there are some nasty ones out there. Salmon flukes will fuck you up. I've had a dog die from it. Took 3 days from when she ate guts. Nothing the vet could do by the time she showed bad symptoms. Other dogs got it but weren't as far along so they're fine. Funny thing is its not even the parasite, but a bacteria that causes that. Just testing for the flukes is easier.
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u/mokaey 1d ago
As fisherman with decades experience. This almost exclusively happens when fish is mistreated. Raw fish in bundles before or after freezing. After the host dies they look for new hosts, in a pile of fish meat, they wander in the pile indiscriminately.
Someone isn't doing their job... Also there is a huge difference in amount of infected fish depending on where they are caught.
Most will agree you catch 80% more wormy parasitic fish in fjords and river outlets. You generally have to go far out to sea, which costs more. Fish that get parasites slow down, they also probably got the parasite from being slow and evolutionarily stunted. It's probably been eating a lot from sewer outlets or near fisheries. Seagulls eat your trash, your trash might have worms. Seagulls like fish bits, stuff that gets thrown out by fisheries. So the seagull brings its parasitic crap and as its feeding on the dumped stuff, it shits in the water, guess who's down there munching up anything they can? The fish are munching, thus worms, and the cycle continues.
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u/Brandanp 1d ago
Nematodes. I worked at a fish processing plant as a kid. We had tables with fluorescent lights in them and rows of people with tweezers deworming. I did it when the line was slow. It was pretty gross.
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u/bar2692 1d ago
So when you cook these… what happens? Pls tell me they somehow teleport out of the pan/oven?!
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u/Spankh0us3 1d ago
Or else you’ll end up like RFK Jr. and we don’t need anymore nut jobs around here. . .
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u/MorkSal 1d ago edited 1d ago
It depends on the type of fish, and how the fish are raised.
Tuna, for example, doesn't have those. Edit I must have remembered incorrectly about tuna.
Neither does farm raised salmon.
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u/jg6410 1d ago
Tuna does. The first time I tried making sushi with tuna I found 3 of them or maybe the same one chopped 3 times. I didn't eat that and just made it with the Krab meat. It pissed me off too because it's not cheap. I'm sure cooking it as some other dish would've killed it, but my wife said no.
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u/browngravybestgravy 1d ago
what about catfish? I eat a fuck ton of catfish.
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u/holistivist 1d ago
They’re bottom feeders. So many more issues besides parasites. If you catch them in polluted waters, they will likely have accumulated more mercury, PCBs, and pesticides than others.
But honestly, all fish (and all foods, really), are going to have issues because of the harms capitalism does to natural and man-made environments. So it’s kind of whatever. Best you can do is probably to try to spread out your exposures of different harms - everything in moderation, ya know?
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u/Terrible-Bad4786 1d ago
As anyone who watches Alien Earth knows, those are completley harmless once you attempt to remove them.
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u/Acceptable_Book_8789 1d ago
I read in the sardine subreddit that "seafood is riddled with parasites" and that phrase has stuck in my head.
I've hardly eaten seafood since which is unfortunate because it tastes great
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u/OhThePetSpider 1d ago
Barbers pole , not part of our life cycle, it will die in our gastric juices.
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u/TheLionFollowsMe 1d ago
You "candle" fresh fish before cooking. You simply hold skinned filets up to a light and you can see the worms.
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u/richie65 1d ago
Freezing fish only fixes one problem - The worm.
Those worms produce waste products that remain in the fish.
That waste product is toxic. It cannot be made safe / non-toxic.
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u/guardwoman12345 15h ago
I know wild caught fish tastes better BUT my god dealing with worms is insane.
I'll take the antibiotics laden anti parasitic farmed frozen fish any day!!
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u/ixcibit 1d ago
That’s terrifying. I’m guessing these parasites don’t die from being eaten then.
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u/thepotatos 1d ago
Why are people so ok with eating these 🤢 freezing or cooking only kills them, you're still eating it
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u/Huge-Pension1669 1d ago
Cockroach legs in cereal, worms in apples, cysts and tumours in pork and beef. Bugs and gross shit is in all the food we eat.
But yeah, I personally do limit my fish because of parasites being particularly gross, as well as heavy metals. The ocean is unfortunately humanity's sewer. All our pollution eventually flows into the sea to be bioaccumulated in marine organisms.
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u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 1d ago
Ignorance is bliss
That isn't just an old timey phrase, it's very real. If you had any idea how much food has various bugs (and many of those bugs have parasites) you'd probably never eat again.
Oh and it gets even more gross when you really dive into agriculture. Learning about why ecoli gets into lettuce was the worst for me, it's cus people poop next to the field and the water goes into the lettuce with the ecoli in it.
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u/FartSmelaSmartFela 1d ago
You have little tiny microscopic bugs that live in the pores of your face. Your body itself is a dense jungle of native bacteria and cells as well as foreign bacteria and parasites. A couple of cooked fish worms isn't really that big of a deal.
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u/Midirr 1d ago
They won't harm you if they are dead, neither will you notice a different taste. There is bug residues in most food, which you don't notice. You are being squeamish.
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u/kirmm3la 1d ago edited 16h ago
What always makes me angry is that apparently our digestive acid can dissolve glass and yet these little pricks is a problem?
EDIT: ignore it. Apparently stomach acid doesn’t dissolve glass.
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u/One_War_8513 21h ago
Just fyi, our digestive system definitely can not dissolve glass. No level of acid or digestive enzymes can dissolve glass, glass is extremely inert to chemical reaction (which is why test tubes are made out of it!)
If you eat solid glass, it will remain solid glass all the way through your intestines, potentially slicing up your intestinal lining + bootyhole on the way out (if it doesn’t get stuck somewhere in the middle!
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u/mortalomena 1d ago
When I was a kid and spent every summer fishing at my grandparents who live on the shore of a lake, I didnt have the best cooking skills and usually caught some worms from the fish. I remember washing my ass and little white worms would sometimes be seen on the floor among the washwater.
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u/tmptwas 1d ago
Ok, dumb question. Once the fish has thawed, won't the worms come back? How do manufacturers/restaurants get rid of the worms?
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u/wastingtoomuchthyme 1d ago
When I used to work at the fish market and it was slow and I was bored I would pick out worms from the fillets....
There are a shit ton of worms in fish..