Sushi safety risks start before you sit down. You’re at the sushi bar. The chef slides salmon nigiri across the counter. Behind him, the rice pile looks like it’s been sitting there since yesterday morning. You notice but you don’t ask. Do you trust the restaurant followed freezing protocols, or do you assume they cut corners?

Why won’t a microbiologist eat sushi after decades studying food safety? Warriner’s answer: “Knowledge is power and I don’t touch it.” The Montreal sushi bar kept adding fresh rice to the pile all weekend. Four days old at the bottom by Monday. Bacillus cereus bacteria. Cereulide toxin that can kill you. The Anisakis parasite takes residency in your stomach. Doctors think you have ulcers or appendicitis. They’re wrong. One sushi chef preparing fish got a cut. Vibrio bacteria caused flesh-eating infection. Amputation followed. Fish fraud: that expensive tuna might be cheap escolar with oils that wreck your digestive system for hours.

Freezing kills the parasite. Proper acidification stops the bacteria. The expert who knows this refuses to eat it anyway. That refusal is the answer.

Topics: sushi safety risks, raw fish parasites, Anisakis, food poisoning, sushi bacteria

GUEST: Keith Warriner

RUNDOWN: Microbiologist Keith Warriner explains why he refuses to eat sushi, covering Anisakis parasites in raw fish, Bacillus cereus in improperly held rice, widespread fish fraud, and the Montreal case where four-day-old rice made customers sick.