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Q: I'm a Sushi beginner and I keep reading conflicting reports
about salmon and its health risks....is it ok to order salmon in a sushi
restaurant? I understand that it may contain parasites. - Jason T.
Theoretically, salmon carries no greater
health risk than any other fish that you may
eat at a restaurant if it is inspected by a skilled sushi chef and treated
properly during processing. There are two reasons that some people may feel that
this is untrue, the first being that salmon spends some of it's life in
fresh water and therefore may be more prone to parasitic infection the other is that some may believe that it may contain
higher amounts of contaminants than other fish. To address these issues
(which may be overkill, but hopefully you will be interested :) Fish that live in fresh water are
at much greater risk of parasites, but salt water fish contain many less.
During it's time spent in salt water, some fresh water parasites die off and
are no longer present, however this does not mean that all will. Salmon to be served raw is also required by law to be
frozen to extremely low temperatures to kill any parasites that may be
present, so unless you are eating at a shady restaurant, you should be fine
as the fish has been prepared properly (as long as the restaurant is not
cutting corners and breaking the law).
As for contaminants (mercury, flame retardants, pesticides), they tend to
concentrate in the larger predatory fish, but unless you basically eat
nothing but salmon three times a day for a year, you won't eat enough to
make any real difference. I would suggest not eating the skin, though, as
contaminants tend to concentrate there (for that reason I stopped eating
those yummy salmon skin rolls years ago, but I still eat tons of salmon and
avocado maki). Salmon is actually quite a healthful fish as the
Omega-3
fatty acids present are
heart friendly fats. Wild salmon has much more of
these fatty acids than farmed salmon, which unfortunately is much more
commonly found at Japanese restaurants due to it being much cheaper. You can
always ask and see if they have the wild variety, I always do for that
reason.
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