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Sushi lovers, beware: stomach-burrowing parasites may bite if you try to make the Japanese delicacy at home.
An Alberta man had the misfortune of hosting the first-recorded Canadian case of a nasty parasitic worm from raw fish he bought at a grocery store.
The 50-year-old was admitted to Calgary’s South Health Campus in August 2014 with severe abdominal pain and vomiting, according to a paper published in the Canadian Journal of Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology.
“This is such a rare, unusual etiology, I don’t think most people would put it too high on their list,” said Dr. Stephen Vaughan, an infectious diseases consultant with a special interest in tropical medicine.
An X-ray and CT scan showed irregularities in the man’s stomach just hours after he made himself sushi at home with raw wild salmon he bought at Superstore.
When a gastrointestinal specialist sent a little camera down his throat into his stomach, what he found was the stuff of squeamish people’s nightmares.
Worms, about a centimetre long, were chomping their way through the man’s stomach lining. Doctors plucked a few of the larva out using endoscopic forceps, Vaughan said.
Can raw salmon be eaten safely?
Ideally, sushi aficionados should stick to dining in restaurants. There, the fish is usually flash frozen to -35 C, according to Alberta Health’s sushi preparation guideliens. Sushi chefs are also trained to recognize the distinctive “watch-spring coil” shape of worms in raw fish, which can be tricky for an amateur to spot.
If you insist on preparing your own sushi or sashimi at home, the paper’s authors have some advice: “freeze the fish for seven days at −20 C or at a lower temperature for a shorter period of time (less than −20 C for four days)” to kill any nasty parasites.
Unfortunately, many home freezers don’t go below – 20 C, so unless you’re willing to upgrade your home equipment, it might be best to leave sushi to the professionals.
Agencies/Canadajournal
