Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Parasites in sushi


Because I'm a sushi fanatic people always ask me wether it's dangerous. Well there was one disease outbreak in Singapore that was related to salmonella coming from sushi. But we get those from chicken in North America all the time, and people still eat chicken. Some people have suggested parasites could be present in the sushi. Well according to my research tuna don't live in an environment conducive to parasites and so are not a concern. Salmon on the other hand does contain nematodes sometimes. Those do not survive well in the freezer and will be cleared by a week at -20C. If one does somehow make it to your stomach, we do not represent a natural host and it will just go through. On rare occasions it may illicit Anisakiasis, which is basically vomiting and diahrea 12h after ingesting the fish. The parasites howerver cannot go trhough their life cycle in humans and will die within a week. There is however one reported case of fish-to-bird tapeworm parasite implanting in human which made for some interresting fishing vacation stories about the size of the worm. Thankfully those are easy to clear with drugs or the milk-cookie-hammer technique. Pollution can also be a concern with red tides, heavy metals (mercury etc..). On a bright note, it seems sushis can protect from cancer!


2 comments:

Rob said...

The milk-cookie-hammer technique?
elaborate
Not one hit on google for
milk-cookie-hammer technique
Perhaps it's a bad translation?

Anonymous Coward said...

No no its's easy

just sit in a bowl of warm milk and shove a cookie up your ass. repeat this process everyday for a week. At the end of the week sit the warm milk but do not insert cookie. When the worm comes out to ask about for cookie, hit it on the head with a hammer.