Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/05/15

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Subject: [Leica] PESO - Today's plate is tomorrow's bait
From: freakscene at weirdness.com (Marty Deveney)
Date: Mon May 15 18:50:28 2006

>As far as I'm concerned, it's TODAY'S bait. Parasitologists tend to pass on
>raw wild-caught food.

As Jeffrey knows, I am also parasitologist.? I am also risk-averse, but with 
seafood, the overwhelming risk is always from bacterial contamination.? The 
only significant fish-borne parasites are the broad tapeworm of fish and 
Anasakis simplex (links below) and both are comparatively rare and entirely 
treatable.? There are a few hundred cases in japan a year, out of several 
billion raw fish meals consumed.? That's good odds.? Take a look at your 
local health department website and find what the rate of bacterial food 
poisoning is in any city in the developed world and you'll see what the real 
risk is.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?rid=mmed.section.4713
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/172/3/329
If you don't like sushi, well, you don't like it, but if you do, parasites 
are no reason to get altogether too paranoid about eating it.  I ate sushi 
and sashimi by the bucketload in Japan earlier this year and make it at home 
frequently, from a range of farmed and wild-caught fish.  Getting in your 
car is much riskier.  I wonder how many people die in car crashes in 
Ontario, where new laws require any fish that is to be served raw to undergo 
a compulsory period of freezing (really looking after their population, that 
local government).  

Of course, if you're talking raw bear meat, or some of the other things I've 
been offered in my travels, forget it.  The risk posed by Trichinella (a 
nematode that, among other things, encysts in muscle in human cases and is 
not really easily treated) and other parasites that are prevalent in 
terrestrial animals throughout much of the world is real.  In a few 
countries (including New Zealand and Australia) many of these critters are 
absent.

I'm not saying everyone should eat sushi, I'm just saying that irrational 
fear of parasites is unjustified.

I have some Leica photos of sushi that I will post tonight, to try to keep 
this on topic.

Later,

Marty


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Replies: Reply from jsmith342 at cox.net (Jeffery Smith) ([Leica] PESO - Today's plate is tomorrow's bait)
Reply from philippe.orlent at pandora.be (Philippe Orlent) ([Leica] PESO - Today's plate is tomorrow's bait)
Reply from images at InfoAve.Net (Tina Manley) ([Leica] PESO - Today's plate is tomorrow's bait)