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A restaurant diner found a live parasitic worm wriggling in his girlfriend’s food and decided to record it. He later got called out by the restaurant for sharing the footage on social media.
Jim Guinee, of Middletown, New Jersey, USA, dined at the Stella Marina Bar and Restaurant in Asbury Park with his family and girlfriend, Jennifer Morzano, to celebrate his aunt’s 80th birthday, reports The Washington Post.
Guinee was later surprised when a parasitic worm started wriggling out of the cod fish meal Morzano had been eating. He decided to video the incident and then raised the issue to the restaurant management. Everything had been sorted out without much issue, with Guinee and his family receiving compensation and an apology.
Despite having eaten half of the fish before discovering the parasite, Morzano did not appear to have contracted an illness.
Guinee bore no ill-will toward the establishment when he later shared the footage of the worm on Facebook and tagged the restaurant’s Facebook account. His aim was to warn others of the possibility of finding parasites in fish.
The restaurant unfortunately took offense at the negative attention the post brought them. In a post that has already been taken down, the restaurant noted the precautions and process they took to prepare food. It then expressed surprise “at the callousness and irresponsible reaction of an attorney of law to attempt to destroy our reputation & possible livelihoods due to something that could have happened to anyone, whether cooking at home or in a restaurant,” according to the report.
Guinee was equally surprised by the development.
Bobbi Pritt, director of the Clinical Parasitology Laboratory in the Mayo Clinic Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, highlighted the importance of preparing fish at the right temperature to kill eggs and larvae hiding inside the fish.
Pritt also identified the worm as an Anisakid parasite, which can cause Anisakiasis where it takes up residence in the stomach wall or intestines. Anisakids are common in cod fish, hence the nickname “cod worms.”
Pritt suggested the fish had not been cooked properly given the parasite was still able to crawl out of the fish’s flesh.
Based on the US Food and Drug Administration’s recommendation, fish should be cooked until its internal temperature reaches 145 degrees Fahrenheit (62.78 degrees Celsius). Meanwhile, raw fish for sushi and similar dishes should be frozen in a commercial freezer at minus 31 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 23.8 degrees Celsius) for seven days. Alfred Bayle /ra
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