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Comment by pvaldes | Hacker News Reader

Is because Diphyllobothriasis, cestode larvaes from freshwater fishes that can be very dangerous for humans; but the fish metazoan parasite that send more sushi lovers to the hospital is marine in fact.

Anisakiasis by roundworm larvae in raw fish or squid normally is not a big problem but is painful, and can lead to serious health issues sometimes. Any competent japanese chef will know how to deal with it. European law obliges to restaurants to frozen all fish destined to be served as sushi just for this.

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"European law obliges to restaurants to frozen all fish destined to be served as sushi just for this."

Really ? All fish served as sushi in Europe has been previously frozen ?

I can not speak for all asiatic restaurant owners in London, Berlin or Paris, but most chefs specialized in serving raw fishes do not joke about this and avoid the problem using special ultra-freezers. This reduces the safety-time to several hours (It is known that Anisakis larvae can survive for about a week in a domestic freezer) and helps to keep the quality of the sashimi. Thus, when you hear 'fresh', you probably should decode this as 'ultra-frozen in fresh' as something totally natural.

The cut of sashimi in translucent fine lames is probably a way to detect and clean the fish of any visible parasites before to serve it. Exposing the beauty of the fish muscle in intrincated designs you are also showing the client that your product is of optimum quality and totally clean.

Here's the UK implementation: https://www.food.gov.uk/business-industry/fish-shellfish/fre...

I'm not sure if this archived page is still accurate: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20150624093026/htt...

Many types of fish used for sushi in Japan have been frozen at some point because commercial trawlers spend weeks if not months at sea, and the catch has to be frozen or left to spoil.

It's the same in the US. If a restaurant is claiming the fish is not frozen, they are breaking the law and eating the fish is significantly more dangerous.

I am not sure about Europe, but that's the law in the US too (there are a few exceptions).

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