Holy Geez Dont!

You are a freshwater organism. Freshwater fish carry bacteria, virus and parasites, the same sort that the water carries and your water purifier is designed to remove. (This is why you boil or purify water before drinking it).

SEAFOOD can be eaten raw, because in order for parasites to survive they need a heavily saline environment, (20%+) Your body is only about 5% saline. Not enough for them to survive.

So to recap; sushi is seafood because salt-water fish is "relatively" safe to eat. Fresh-water fish will kill you.

 

THANK YOU.

I knew it was one of the two.....coulda swore I saw that SAS guy do on TV, maybe he's full of it or has an IRON gut.

-Rob

p.s. know i just gotta relearn how to gut and clean a fish...haven't done it since I was like 10.

 

Not good idea

Dont ask how I know, just remember that if you chewed a "soft" old tin can it would taste better. If you can catch freswater fish it will usually be possible to sun dry, smoke or cook the fish, making it taste better, as well as being safer.

Bottom line, you _can_ eat fish raw, but like eating dirt it is not really a good idea and most people do not want to do it twice.

GreyOne

 

There are many edible fresh water fish around the world, although there are many that taste like crap, bones (or mud). I would never eat them raw though.

Traditionally in Europe and North America, infections with fish tapeworms were incurred during the preparation of gefilte fish by Jewish women who tasted bits of uncooked freshwater fish and thus ingested plerocercoids.

Lofty Wiseman in SAS Survival Handbook, new edition 2006 says that all freshwater fish are edible (p243) although he must be less fussy than some of us. Lofty also says fresh water fish are usually germ free and are best stewed or wrapped in non-toxic leaves and cooked in embers (p298). Smoking is also good to preserve fish - or sun-dry to make Biltong. He also cautions to avoid fresh water stingrays, piranha (of course) and electric eels (p228).

A special caution also is not to eat anything from freshwater which might cause you to ingest BLUE-GREEN ALGAE. It is POISONOUS (p187).

The rules I always follow (please correct me if you know I'm wrong) is to bleed all fish immediately, and gut asap. I do this with ALL freshwater fish and any saltwater fish that might eat weed, or have a dark inside lining, like blackfish.

Some edibles, as far as I know:

• freshwater bream
• freshwater bass
• freshwater catfish - yuck, skin these
• carp
• buffalofish
• pike
• perch
• lake trout
• whitefish
• eels, skin these like a snake of catfish
• freshwater mussels
• crayfish, marron, freshwater prawns
• freshwater cod (eg Murray Cod, Australia)
• freshwater Perch, Barramundi

Cheers, Herne

 

Thanks Herne,

Good post about edible freshwater fish. It is important to note, as you point out, edible COOKED and NOT raw.

 

You saw Bear Grylls, need we say more.
Read this article.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9A03E6DC1539F933A0575AC0A967948260

 

a few more thoughts

first rule of fish cooking is dont dont dont dont overcook.

if you can smell it cooking you are overcooking it. when the muscle bands will separate nicely its cooked.

As for eating fish raw......spent more time than was maybe sensible "going native" in Eskimo country in Alaska.

There was only one type of fish that they Esks in that area liked to eat fresh / raw, a small kind of whitefish.

Frozen fish is another deal tho. Freezing kills parasites like tapeworms.

There is some technique to figure out, it isnt immediately obvious how you go from whole frozen fish to something you put in your mouth. Some species like salmon really arent very good frozen. Whitefish and pike are excellent. The eggs and liver are good and should be eaten. A fish that is just thawed enough is very easy no-mess to clean.

Anyhow.... might not ever be important, let alone life or death, but eating raw fresh water fish is ok to do, pretty good really, if you do it right.

 

Where the fish are caught is a big factor , most rivers and lakes in populated areas contain human waste.

 

Several of the rivers and lakes around Memphis have signs posted saying not to eat the fish at all (yes, even cooked) due to the high mercury content in them.

 

Trust nothing, cook everything.

 

Cook them. you don't need to take the chance.

 

Bear Grylls is a fool. Freshwater fish carry parasites. Saltwater fish make good sushi, though.

 

All land snails, land slugs and freshwater mollusks are edible after they have been thoroughly cooked. Many of them don't taste good, and many do. Some needs some foul tasting parts removed. The land slugs and snails can harbor a parasite that comes from rat droppings. If the slug or snail is eaten raw the parasite can crawl from your stomach to your brain and cause it to swell, threatening your life. So, cook the slugs and snails thoroughly, as well as the freshwater mollusks who can have bacteria from Beaver's and Butt Head.

 

Eating freshwater fish raw

Just now watching man vs wild. He speared and ate a catfish raw. My admitedly very old navy survival training was very clear on this point salt water fish are usually safe to eat raw, if freshly killed. Freshwater fish, no way never do it, the parasites and bacteria that live in freshwater fish can kill you, or seriously weaken you much faster than starvation. Just wondering if something has changed.

 

We always froze our cleaned bass and crappie in a quart bag with salted water. Fish tasted great and didn't get freezer burn.

We never ate bass or crappie right off the docks unless we fried them.

Never really liked catfish though.

 

Please don't eat fresh water fish, unless you know that there are no bacterial contaminates, or parasites which infect those fish. There is little way to know! Fish tape worm (Diphyllobothrium latum)) is not pleasant to get! Pickle or cook with lime or lemon does not destroy this parasite.

 

Why would someone not be able to cook the fish?

 

Knock Knock anyone there?

I still want to know this.

I can not think of any situation where you could not cook fish, it takes such low heat to do it you do not have to have a big roaring fire. Why would there not be some way that it could be cooked?

 

Eating Fresh-water fish will kill you.

 

I have, many many years ago, eaten raw freshwater fish multiple times without harm.

I would no longer trust doing so (freshwater or otherwise).

Smoke it, cook it, dry it, boil it... something.....

 

I watch the history channel show "monsters inside me" sometimes . Some scary stuff .
1 episode was about a guy that got a parasite from eating an undercooked trout he caught . It almost killed him .
Cook everything and cook it thoroughly .

 

Many here seem to think salt water fish don't have parasites. They do!

The FDA requires that fish served raw be frozen in a commercial freezer to kill any/all parasites. A home freezer will not work even if you leave it frozen for weeks/months. I buy sashimi grade tuna to make sushi at home and I also feed raw fish to my snakes so I had to research this.

The FDA has required all fish (with the exception of tuna) destined to be served raw in the U.S. to be frozen at a minimum of minus four degrees Fahrenheit for seven days or minus thirty-one degrees Fahrenheit for fifteen hours. Either process will kill any and all parasites inside of a fish.

Home freezers cannot freeze this quickly and so not only do parasites survive the process but the long time lapse of freezing creates long ice crystals that pierce cell wall after cell wall as they grow.

http://www.eatsushi.com/article.asp?X=628

 

Can it be done? Yes. Should it be done? No. Why would it be done???

I would not eat raw fresh water fish, if I had other options.
To many chances of getting sick involved.

Extremely simple to make an aluminum foil packet to quickly cook fish in over camp fire coals.

We carry about 10 to 12 feet of Reynolds Extra Heavy Duty Aluminum Foil in each of our field back packs.

Buy a roll of Reynolds Extra Heavy Duty Aluminum Foil.
(length/width is optional to suit your preferences)

Cut a piece of thin stiff flat cardboard or thin bendable plastic about 3 inches wide & slightly over half the width of the aluminum foil as a carrier.

Carefully pull 10 or 12 feet (or however much you prefer) of the foil out of the box it comes in.

Carefully fold the width of the foil in half over its full length.

Tightly wrap the full length of the folded foil around the pre-cut cardboard or plastic carrier.

Insert the wrapped carrier into a tyvek sheath made from a free FedEx tyvek envelope.

Position sheathed foil safely in your pack, for use when/where its needed.

Inexpensive, lightweight, reliable & expedient means to cook fish. Simple as that.

 

Thanks for this thread!

I had heard that sushi was NEVER fresh water fish, and I had always wondered if it was to avoid parasites but I did not have a reliable source to ask.

 

How about raw fish from The Hudson River? [emoji33]

 

I have lived my whole life fishing the Sierra Nevada, Cascade mountains and the Sacramento delta. I have never seen parasites in the mountain caught trout. That doesn't mean they aren't there. The fish from the delta are infested with worms and such. That being said. I would never eat uncooked freshwater fish.

 

NEVER eat any fish raw. Most if not all fish carry many different forms of parasites that due to the fact that they cannot complete their life cycle can end up in parts of your body like your liver or your brain as hydatid cysts. Freezing the larva and eggs below a certain temp for a period of time will kill them, but why risk it. Just cook fish like you would wild pork or bear.