Parasites in Food/Food Safety Around The World?

[David Paul Appell]

While preparing monkfish I'd bought at Whole Foods, I noticed tiny live worms wriggling around in the flesh.  End of apetite - even though online research subsequently revealed that this is actually a not uncommon issue with monkfish - worms or eggs.  I remember enjoying monkfish (pixín) repeatedly along Spain's northern Asturias coast, and wonder how many times I'd actually eaten these worms or eggs without knowing it.  What are your thoughts/opinions about this particular case and more generally about eating possible parasite-ridden food, especially as street food or in parts of the world where hygiene standards may not be what we've been accustomed to expecting in the West?

[MaryAnne Durkee]

This is one reason sushi chefs are trained to remove the worms.  If fish is frozen or cooked they are "gone" and do no harm.  You know there are often bugs in grains ie breads, and baked goods.  In Thailand bugs are fried and sold as a snack.  The legs on grasshoppers are crunchy and good, grups are crips, but I pass on those large hard shelled water bugs. 

[David Paul Appell]

MaryAnne and Julie, I agree with both of you, actually.  In Mexico, Africa, and Australia I've actually sought out worms that had been made menu features (wichetty grubs, gusanos maguey, etc), but in this case I was grossed out, perhaps because it caught me by surprise. Also, while I did take this back (and BTW, it was accepted by Whole Foods without question - love them!), I also recognize that I have almost certainly consumed parasites thousands of times as part of fish or meat - seems it's very hard to avoid in the wild, and in cooking the worms are shriveled and rendered harmless; sushi chefs have also developed their own ways of dealing with this, er, womry issue.  I have to think that our immune systems must be equipped to deal with the fact that little meat or fish comes without parasite of some sort, which are rendered harmless by cooking.