All Posts Tagged as 'Fish'

The “Dublin Declaration of Scientists on the Societal Role of Livestock” says livestock “are too precious to society to become the victim of simplification, reductionism or zealotry” and calls for a “balanced view of the future of animal agriculture”. One of the authors of the declaration is an economist who called veganism an “eating disorder requiring psychological treatment”.

For parasitic worms of the genus Anisakis, life typically goes like this: after floating through the ocean in an egg, they hatch as wriggling larvae with a peculiar desire—to be eaten. Small crustaceans like krill gobble up the larvae, and those infested krill are then eaten by squid or small fish, which are devoured by bigger fish until they finally earn their nickname, whale worms, and end up in the bellies of whales or dolphins where they complete their life cycle by laying eggs that are subsequently ejected in the hosts’ feces.

But sometimes, those big fish full of the worms—like salmon or herring—get intercepted by fishers and end up in markets. Although fish suppliers and sushi chefs diligently remove parasite-infected fish from their wares, occasionally one of those little buggers may wind up in your sushi roll.

Now, new research finds the global population of those parasitic worms, commonly found in sushi and other kinds of uncooked fish, has exploded in recent decades. The worms are 283-times more common than they were roughly 40 years ago, according to a new paper published in Global Change Biology.