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There was actually a very sensible rule followed in China and Japan about eating raw fish. You only ate sea fish raw, while freshwater fish were always cooked.

There was actually a very sensible rule followed in China and Japan about eating raw fish. You only ate sea fish raw, while freshwater fish were always cooked. There's a good rationale behind this. Freshwater fish tend to carry parasites that can cross the species boundary between fish and human. Whereas, sea fish do not tend to carry such parasites. You can understand the reason for that based on natural selection. Its an exceedingly rare event for a sea fish to be eaten by a land mammal (at least it was on the scale of evolutionary time before modern times), so most parasites of sea fish have not evolved a mechanism to exist in land mammal bodies. Whereas fresh water fish are often eaten by land mammals, and so many strains of parasites have adapted to make a smooth transfer from fish to land mammal body. Its very sensible NOT to eat raw Salmon. Although they end up in the sea, they have two phases of life in bodies of fresh water where they can pick up parasites that can transfer to a human host.

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- MagnumOpus 11y ago
  No, according to that logic, you shouldn't eat raw beef, pork and chicken. Which is a highly advisable precaution - not following it will result in a high chance of critters like Taenia Saginata or Trichinella spiralis making a home inside you.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - munificent 11y ago
    Trichinella is actually vanishingly rare in US commercial pork today. Most cases these days come from boar and other wild game. http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/trichinellosis/epi.html http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/trichinellosis/epi.html
pvaldes 11y ago
Is because Diphyllobothriasis, cestode larvaes from freshwater fishes that can be very dangerous for humans; but the fish metazoan parasite that send more sushi lovers to the hospital is marine in fact. Anisakiasis by roundworm larvae in raw fish or squid normally is not a big problem but is painful, and can lead to serious health issues sometimes. Any competent japanese chef will know how to deal with it. European law obliges to restaurants to frozen all fish destined to be served as sushi just for this.
- rsync 11y ago
  "European law obliges to restaurants to frozen all fish destined to be served as sushi just for this." Really ? All fish served as sushi in Europe has been previously frozen ?
  - DanBC 11y ago
    Here's the UK implementation: https://www.food.gov.uk/business-industry/fish-shellfish/freezing-requirements-guidance https://www.food.gov.uk/business-industry/fish-shellfish/fre... I'm not sure if this archived page is still accurate: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20150624093026/http://www.food.gov.uk/news-updates/news/2012/5252/fishfreeze http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20150624093026/htt...
  - pvaldes 11y ago
    I can not speak for all asiatic restaurant owners in London, Berlin or Paris, but most chefs specialized in serving raw fishes do not joke about this and avoid the problem using special ultra-freezers. This reduces the safety-time to several hours (It is known that Anisakis larvae can survive for about a week in a domestic freezer) and helps to keep the quality of the sashimi. Thus, when you hear 'fresh', you probably should decode this as 'ultra-frozen in fresh' as something totally natural. The cut of sashimi in translucent fine lames is probably a way to detect and clean the fish of any visible parasites before to serve it. Exposing the beauty of the fish muscle in intrincated designs you are also showing the client that your product is of optimum quality and totally clean.
  - blue11 11y ago
JacobJans 11y ago
Only eat raw salmon that has been flash frozen. This will kill the pesky parasites, according to the chef at a sushi restaurant I used to frequent.
- cmclaughlin 11y ago
  My favorite sushi chef lightly smokes his salmon.
sovande 11y ago
That's why this was such an interesting story, battling prejudice and ancient folk wisdom is no simple task. Here's a typical Norwegian salmon farm http://i0.wp.com/blogg.seafood.no/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Havbruk.jpg http://i0.wp.com/blogg.seafood.no/wp-content/uploads/2013/02.... This is a sea-water farm and the fish is vaccinated early on and live a healthy antibiotics free life until they end up on your sushi (sour-tasting rice).
- orik 11y ago
  fish farms had just gone commercial in the 70's but hadn't grown that much at the time. the excess of high quality fish was wild salmon. in the 70's in norway (and in alaska, can't speak about anywhere else) commercial fishing was in it's prime. you can read more about the history of norwegian aquaculture here. http://www.svt.ntnu.no/iso/anders.skonhoft/Marine%20Policy%20salmon%20overview%202010.pdf http://www.svt.ntnu.no/iso/anders.skonhoft/Marine%20Policy%2...

deleted 11y ago

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MagnumOpus 11y ago
No, according to that logic, you shouldn't eat raw beef, pork and chicken. Which is a highly advisable precaution - not following it will result in a high chance of critters like Taenia Saginata or Trichinella spiralis making a home inside you.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- munificent 11y ago
  Trichinella is actually vanishingly rare in US commercial pork today. Most cases these days come from boar and other wild game. http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/trichinellosis/epi.html http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/trichinellosis/epi.html

pvaldes 11y ago

Is because Diphyllobothriasis, cestode larvaes from freshwater fishes that can be very dangerous for humans; but the fish metazoan parasite that send more sushi lovers to the hospital is marine in fact. Anisakiasis by roundworm larvae in raw fish or squid normally is not a big problem but is painful, and can lead to serious health issues sometimes. Any competent japanese chef will know how to deal with it. European law obliges to restaurants to frozen all fish destined to be served as sushi just for this.

rsync 11y ago
"European law obliges to restaurants to frozen all fish destined to be served as sushi just for this." Really ? All fish served as sushi in Europe has been previously frozen ?
- DanBC 11y ago
  Here's the UK implementation: https://www.food.gov.uk/business-industry/fish-shellfish/freezing-requirements-guidance https://www.food.gov.uk/business-industry/fish-shellfish/fre... I'm not sure if this archived page is still accurate: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20150624093026/http://www.food.gov.uk/news-updates/news/2012/5252/fishfreeze http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20150624093026/htt...
- pvaldes 11y ago
  I can not speak for all asiatic restaurant owners in London, Berlin or Paris, but most chefs specialized in serving raw fishes do not joke about this and avoid the problem using special ultra-freezers. This reduces the safety-time to several hours (It is known that Anisakis larvae can survive for about a week in a domestic freezer) and helps to keep the quality of the sashimi. Thus, when you hear 'fresh', you probably should decode this as 'ultra-frozen in fresh' as something totally natural. The cut of sashimi in translucent fine lames is probably a way to detect and clean the fish of any visible parasites before to serve it. Exposing the beauty of the fish muscle in intrincated designs you are also showing the client that your product is of optimum quality and totally clean.
- blue11 11y ago

JacobJans 11y ago

Only eat raw salmon that has been flash frozen. This will kill the pesky parasites, according to the chef at a sushi restaurant I used to frequent.

cmclaughlin 11y ago
My favorite sushi chef lightly smokes his salmon.

sovande 11y ago

That's why this was such an interesting story, battling prejudice and ancient folk wisdom is no simple task. Here's a typical Norwegian salmon farm http://i0.wp.com/blogg.seafood.no/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Havbruk.jpg http://i0.wp.com/blogg.seafood.no/wp-content/uploads/2013/02.... This is a sea-water farm and the fish is vaccinated early on and live a healthy antibiotics free life until they end up on your sushi (sour-tasting rice).

orik 11y ago
fish farms had just gone commercial in the 70's but hadn't grown that much at the time. the excess of high quality fish was wild salmon. in the 70's in norway (and in alaska, can't speak about anywhere else) commercial fishing was in it's prime. you can read more about the history of norwegian aquaculture here. http://www.svt.ntnu.no/iso/anders.skonhoft/Marine%20Policy%20salmon%20overview%202010.pdf http://www.svt.ntnu.no/iso/anders.skonhoft/Marine%20Policy%2...