Yes, I agree. You will see from my message that I am not entirely happy with
the EU derogation of farmed salmon from the requirement of freezing before
using raw. I don't think bird droppings transmit nematode parasites, but I
do not think you can rule out that fish reared in sea cages will
occasionally have the opportunity to consume wild food. Also I think some
fish farmers make up their own feeds and they might use raw trash fish. The
derogation should not be for farmed salmon as such, but for farmed salmon,
or perhaps other species of farmed fish, that has been fed only with
pelleted feeds, or with heat processed or previously frozen fish or fish
offal.
Peter
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jin Kim" <jkim@spa.ars.usda.gov>
To: <phowgate@clara.co.uk>; <seafood@ucdavis.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2005 8:23 PM
Subject: Re: Fish for raw consumption in US
What I meant in my comment was I would like FDA in the future to require all
fish frozen for safety if it is intended to consume as raw. That is my
personal opinion. Feed is extrusion-cooked and safe, but how about many
different kinds of bird's droppings in floating pens of salmon farming and
in pond of land-based different fish farming. One fish was infested in a
major study in the case of farmed Atlantic salmon as Hans Morten Henriksen
mentioned. If someone eats that fish, that person is going to be sick. If a
portion of the fillet is served some other people, they may get sick.
I saw many species of fish caught off-coast of Alaska were infested by
parasites. Most sashimi restaurants in Anchorage don't use fish right from
their coast, but ship the fish from Seattle and West Coast of the US to
serve at their restaurants. What happens if someone serves fish from there
without previous freezing. There could be many non-reported food-borne
disease caused by these parasites.
I hope University Seafood Extension obtain funds to organize and train
sashimi restaurant chef how to freeze and thaw all fish species for serving
so that raw fish can be served without much quality deterioration.
Jin Kim
USDA-ARS-ASRU
Pine Bluff, AR 71601
jkim@spa.ars.usda.gov
>>> "P Howgate" <phowgate@clara.co.uk> 07/26/05 09:39AM >>>
In the EU farmed Atlantic salmon need not be frozen before consumption in
the raw or lightly processed states because surveys have shown that such
salmon are free from nematode parasites. Nematode parasites are transmitted
to the host fish through consumption of parasitised prey fish, and likewise
other species of farmed fish should also be free of nematode parasites, but
only provided they have been fed on processed feeds, as distinct from
unprocessed, raw, feeds or, presumably, previously frozen raw feeds. I would
still be wary of such derogations from the best practice of prior freezing
of fish destined for raw or lightly processed products unless the specific
combination species and cultural practices had been demonstrated to be safe.
I would agree that the texture of fish frozen according to the requirements
to inactivate trematode parasites - holding at -18 or below for 24 hours -
would be little changed compared with the unfrozen counterpart, and any
change would anyway be well within the natural variation in texture of the
species in question. This observation is based on my experience of
attempting to measure the effects of the freeing/thawing cycle alone, as
distinct from the from the effects of storage in the frozen state, on
texture of fish. If the fish is frozen and thawed under good practices -
frozen rapidly and thawed rapidly - any affects of the freeze/thaw cycle is
difficult to detect even by an experience laboratory panel, and only then
when data are pooled over several samples.
Peter Howgate
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