Is It Healthy to Eat Raw Fish?

Although eating regular sashimi is not as lethal as fugu, it does have its risk. (Flickr/Robyn Lee)

When a person mentions Japanese food, the first thing that may come to mind is raw fish. Raw fish, or also known as sashimi has long been a delicacy in the land of the rising sun, and now health-food connoisseurs are stating that raw fish is the way to go. The fish often used in making sashimi are those high in omega fatty acids, such as tuna and salmon. The levels of omega-3 in these types of fish are very high, especially in its raw state, which is highly praised for preventing heart disease. Children that consumed food high in omega-3 were also found to have higher IQ’s, were less prone to depression, reduced levels of ADHD and had better vision. Eating your fish raw also offers a higher amount of protein for far fewer calories, compared to eating a hearty steak or beef burger.

 

Although eating raw fish has its many benefits, have you ever stopped and wondered whether the sashimi you are eating is safe to eat? Browse the internet and you can find various claims of people being infected by parasites because they ate too much sashimi, or news of mercury levels rising in the world’s oceans. Could you actually be putting yourself at risk every time you pick up a piece beautifully cut salmon with your chopsticks?

What threats lay a bed?

When consuming sashimi, there are several things that you really need to keep an eye on, such as the freshness of the fish and whether there are visible signs of parasites. It is quite easy to determine whether the fish has gone bad or not, as there is usually a noticeable fishy stench. Rotten fish is laden in bacteria and should not be eaten.

The biggest threat in eating raw meat, fish or otherwise, is the presence of parasites which are not always detectable. One of the reasons why meat needs to be cooked to begin with is to kill off these seemingly invisible parasites. Some parasites, like cod worms and seal worms, can be spotted with the human eye but are more difficult to detect, so you have to look closely.

Another unseen threat that threatens to harm your seemingly benign plate of sashimi is mercury poisoning. As more and more of our toxic waste makes its way into the oceans, it slowly taints the tasty flesh of fish in the sea and will intermittently poison us in return. Although not all ocean-dwelling fish have been found to contain high doses of mercury, some popular species of tuna (bluefin and yellowfin) are considered hazardous.

Enjoying sashimi without the risks

Like in Japan, the sushi restaurants in Indonesia require the sushi chefs of all Japanese restaurants to have several years experience of serving sashimi under their belt. Not any chef can become a sushi chef. A sushi chef not only learns how to cut the fish, but also learns how to select the perfect fish to be transformed into sushi or sashimi. That is why eating at one of the many sushi franchise restaurants in Indonesia is considered quite safe. 

Although you are guaranteed to not suffer food poisoning from eating sashimi in Indonesia, the threat of mercury poisoning is still out there. Given our often reckless treatment of the planet’s  oceans and seas, we can never truly know what condition the fish have been swimming in. If mercury poisoning is a dilemma to you, but you still wish to get the benefits of raw it is advised to keep your raw fish consumption to under 200 grams a week. As high mercury contamination is often found in the flesh of apex predators of the sea, you may want to switch your tuna sashimi with either flounder, trout or salmon as these fish have been found to contain less mercury. 

By : Rinaldi Herdianto 19 June 2015 02:14:46