TOTALLY GROSSED OUT!

April 9, 2008 3:46 PM

I found a very small (live) worm in my cod dinner. This cod was line caught on Saturday in New Hampshire's Atlantic. It was given to me by the fisherman. It spent 3 days in the fridge. I had baked the fish for 13 minutes at 400 degrees. It was white and flakey. As I was eating (after I had eaten over half), I noticed a circular thing, about 1/2 cm in diameter, which looked odd. I poked at it with my fork where I noticed it was alive. It was very thin and about an inch long. Am I going to die? Is there anything to do?

Normally, I am not totally freaked out by food. I am not an overly cautious person - I eat medium hamburgers. I eat sushi. I never give these things a second thought. However, there is something very, very unsettling about seeing a worm in something you've eaten. I looked through the rest of the fish and the other fsh I had made for my husband and saw nothing.

posted by beachhead2 to Food & Drink (10 answers total)

Best answer: Check this site. I don't think you have anything to worry about.
posted by nimsey lou at 3:52 PM on April 9, 2008

Best answer: Well, I came across that blog post too (Googling "cod worms" brings up others, including YouTube videos), and it says that if you ate a live one, which you might have, you'd be "in trouble." However, from this somewhat more authoritative advisory, the are "harmless if consumed."
posted by beagle at 4:01 PM on April 9, 2008

there is something very, very unsettling about seeing a worm in something you've eaten Not as unsettling as finding half a worm. Seriously though, this site has lots of information.
posted by Neiltupper at 4:02 PM on April 9, 2008

I stopped eating cod for many years after having the exact same experience. Worms that can survive cooking are pretty amazing creatures. Anyway, even though I'm pretty sure I ate a bunch of the worms before noticing, no harm was done except to my appetite. They don't turn into larvae and come out your ears or anything exciting like that.

If you are really concerned about what might be living in your intestines, your doctor can prescribe worming medicine for you (probably mebendezole, but there are lots of others). You take it, sometimes it gives you the runs and sometimes not, and once in a while disgusting things come out your bum. But low levels of worm infestation do you no harm, and might do you considerable good (by giving your immune system something to do), so you don't want to overdo the de-worming.
posted by Forktine at 4:44 PM on April 9, 2008 [1 favorite]

You found a cod worm, which are extremely common in the flesh of cod caught in inshore waters, particularly where there is a presence of seals. These are usually the same waters where the line-caught cod comes from, so there is a higher incidence of worms in those fish. You can rest assured that it was not an anisakis worm, which are generally found in salmon and can be dangerous to your health. The worm you found/ate is simply unappetizing.

These worms are dealt with every day in wholesale and retail fish markets by placing fresh cod fillets on a light table, similar to how a doctor view your x-rays. The worms are removed with tweezers. Some fish have none, some have hundreds of worms. Chances are that any cod you have eaten already may have had a worm removed already are high. Don't worry too much about it.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 5:44 PM on April 9, 2008 [1 favorite]

I have had the great opportunity of visiting a fish processing plant in Gloucester, MA, which was among the more awesome bits of professional development I had ever done. In the plant worked about a dozen middle-aged white women and about a dozen middle-aged Asian men. The men's job was to skin and filet flounder, fluke, yellowpane and other skinny fish, which they did really deftly with sharp knives and the aid of a nifty skinning machine.

The women? They worked at a light-table, and their job was to lay freshly skinned codfish on the light-table and look for the worms, which they then drew out with needlenose pliers.

I say this not to freak you out but to assure you that there are worms in almost all wild-caught codfish - fish in general, in fact - and that it's totally not a big deal. They remove them for cosmetic reasons, not because the worms will hurt you. They're just more protein.

On preview, what kuujjuarapik said.
posted by Miko at 5:53 PM on April 9, 2008

Well this is quite informative, I grew up around fish (several times a week) as did my 80 yo mother (Outer Banks of NC) and neither of us has ever seen, or heard of, a worm in a fish. I would have thought it rare, but apparently not. That's fascinating, and repulsive as heck.
posted by dawson at 7:23 PM on April 9, 2008

The number and vareity of nematodes and trematodes that inhabit fish, crustaceans, and other edible invertebrates is astoundingly high, as I learned in parasitology class.

My professor advised us, in all seriousness, not to pick apart cooked fish.
posted by NucleophilicAttack at 8:16 PM on April 9, 2008

I learned about worms in cod many years ago, from an interview with Roland Gift of Fine Young Cannibals. He used to work as a fish gutter. I've avoided cod for like, twenty years now.

Thanks, Roland.
posted by oneirodynia at 8:53 PM on April 9, 2008 [1 favorite]

One of my friends worked for a summer on a fishing boat and community in Alaska. One of her first jobs (thankfully brief) was to inspect fish for any worms. Those with worms were put aside for use in fishsticks, fillets, and other artificially shaped fish products.

So you've probably eaten worms before.
posted by bibliowench at 12:50 PM on April 10, 2008