Several Foods That Easily Hide Parasites
Introduction: This is the season for feasting on lobster, snails, shellfish, and sashimi. At night, spicy crayfish and other seafood dishes become the signature offerings of restaurants and late-night food stalls. While you're enjoying your meal, hidden parasites in the food may have already entered your body.
Crayfish and Paragonimiasis
Crayfish are common in the rivers and lakes of the south, and can even be found in paddy fields, ditches, and dirty water. Due to their strong reproductive capacity, they are very easy to catch. In recent years, spicy crayfish have become popular all over the country, and some places have even opened restaurants specializing in crayfish. However, because crayfish live in poor quality water, they are often parasitized by lung flukes.
If people eat crayfish raw or undercooked, they are very likely to be infected with this parasite, leading to paragonimiasis. The lung fluke mainly parasitizes the human lungs. In mild cases, it can manifest as cough, chest pain, and hemoptysis. In severe cases, it can cause massive pulmonary hemorrhage, organ obstruction, and death. Once, three people in Beijing suffered from "acute rhabdomyolysis" after eating crayfish and were in danger of losing their lives.
Expert reminder: Remove the back vein of the crayfish before cooking, and make sure to cook it thoroughly. It is best not to eat the head of the crayfish.
Sashimi and Clonorchiasis
Fish fillets, boneless and sliced thin, are eaten raw with wasabi for a delicious taste. Wrapped in flour and deep-fried, they are crispy and tender. While enjoying such delicacies, a potential problem may be sown in the stomach. This is because freshwater fish are often parasitized by liver flukes, such as topmouth culter and flathead mullet.
In areas like Guangdong and Guangxi, the average infection rate of parasites in freshwater fish is as high as 60%. The liver fluke mainly parasitizes the human liver and bile ducts, damaging the liver. Patients often feel pain in the liver, abdominal bloating, and discomfort. Liver function abnormalities can be detected upon examination.
Snails and Angiostrongyliasis
The larvae of the rat lungworm develop in certain terrestrial or aquatic snails for a long time. Some people, eager for a tender bite, only briefly blanch them in boiling water before eating. If people eat snails raw or undercooked, they can be infected with the rat lungworm.
Once infected with the rat lungworm, it will travel through the human body, enter the brain, and the lesions will concentrate in the brain tissue, including the cerebellum, brainstem, and spinal cord, in addition to the brain and meninges. Mild clinical symptoms include headache, dizziness, nausea, and vomiting. Severe cases can lead to shock, agitation, and even death. Patients develop eosinophilic meningoencephalitis or meningitis, characterized by a significant increase in eosinophils in the cerebrospinal fluid.
Water Chestnuts and Fasciolopsiasis
Autumn is the season for harvesting water chestnuts and water chestnuts. They are fresh and tender when picked, and it's hard to resist eating them. This is a very likely time to get infected with the fasciolopsis that parasitizes on water chestnuts and water chestnuts. The fasciolopsis parasitizes the human small intestine, causing digestive and systemic symptoms such as abdominal pain, bloating, and diarrhea. In severe cases, it can lead to anemia, edema, and growth retardation.
Expert reminder: Try not to eat water chestnuts, water chestnuts, or lotus roots raw. Do not peel them with your teeth. If eaten raw, they must be washed thoroughly, soaked in boiling water for a few minutes, or sun-dried for a day before consumption. Pay attention to hygiene, do not drink unboiled water, and wash your hands after coming into contact with aquatic plants or sewage to prevent contamination with cysts.
So, which foods with worms can people still eat?
Can you eat oranges that have worms?
It is indeed a bit scary to eat an orange with worms, but the orange is not entirely infested. Just remove the affected segments, and the rest is unaffected.
Can you eat bayberries that have worms?
Because bayberries are nutritious and have no peel to protect them, they naturally become a primary host for insect larvae. The small white worms that come out of the bayberries are fly larvae. Because the main component of the larvae is protein, it will not have an impact on the human body. Therefore, after buying fresh bayberries, people should soak them in a high-concentration saltwater solution for half an hour before eating.
Can you eat fermented bean curd with worms?
The worms in the fermented bean curd are not fly larvae, because they grow in vegetarian and salty foods. As long as these things are not produced in a dirty environment or conditions, they will not be harmful to the body, so it is safe to eat.
Can you eat mung beans that have worms?
Yes, you can eat them. First, sun-dry them, and the live worms will crawl away. Some worms hiding inside the beans can only be killed by boiling, which is not harmful! You can eat them with confidence!