Will Eating Sushi Give You Tapeworms?

I love sushi. Between the neat compact shapes, the bright colors, and odd yet creative names restaurants give their sushi, it’s easily one of my favorite foods. Unfortunately, sushi, like most foods, can be dangerous if prepared incorrectly.

There’s a story circulating on the Internet about a man in China named Tain Liao who eats a lot of sushi. One day, he experiences some stomach pains and goes to the doctor. The doctor takes a few x-rays and discovers the man’s body is full of tapeworms.

For anyone not familiar with tapeworms, their larva and eggs are often found in undercooked food, including fish. Tapeworms are parasites that can live in their hosts for almost a quarter of a century, feeding as the human it inhabits eats. The worm can cause abdominal discomfort, diarrhea, and/or loss of appetite. Usually tapeworms aren’t life threatening, but if the parasite starts moving around the body, it can obstruct intestines. If the worm finds its way into the brain, fatal seizures may occur.

Fortunately for sushi lovers like myself, there is reason to doubt whether this story is true. First, the x-rays took pictures of muscle tissue when tapeworms typically live in intestines (that’s where all the food is of course). Second, most doctors would start with a feces test because tapeworms leave evidence behind, which the intestines will flush out along with regular waste.

But before you breathe a sigh of relief, there’s another story in the United States that might be true. In Southern California, Farmer’s Rice Cooperative is being sued for selling tainted rice. Sushi restaurant owners claim, through a class-action suit, that they thought they were buying U.S. No. 1 Extra Fancy rice. The restaurants assert that the rice they received had extra things in it, but it wasn’t fancy. The rice allegedly contains rodent feces, black mold, and other things that shouldn’t be eaten. Farmer’s Rice is denying all accusations that they defrauded restaurants into buying tainted rice for sushi production.

Should I Still Eat Sushi?

Regardless of the horror stories, I still plan on eating sushi. Bad things could happen if I eat the wrong undercooked fish, but bad things could happen if I eat the wrong hamburger. The question is not whether I should still eat, but whether there are enough rules to ensure that the food I buy is what I paid for.

Chefs must follow rules and guidelines created by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and state laws that they work in. Indeed, California passed a law this year required sushi chefs to work with plastic gloves when handling undercooked food, barring certain exceptions.

Restaurants and chefs aren’t fond of the new rule because they prefer to work with their hands. Chefs might protest that using gloves wouldn’t stop customers from eating a tapeworm or mold in rice. However, the gloves lessen the danger that the chef might contaminate the food with their hands. This would bolster any case against food manufactures like Farmer’s Rice Cooperative because an alternative cause of food contamination, the chefs, would not be a factor. More importantly, this would help courts determine who is actually liable for bad food.

So sushi lovers rejoice. Even if you find tapeworms and rat feces in your food, you might be able to get compensation without shutting down your favorite Japanese restaurant.