Do you check raw fish properly before cooking it? Turns out, it is not uncommon to find worms or insects in fish, even when you buy them from the supermarket. A US woman found that out the hard way when she spotted a live, wiggling worm in the fish she bought from Costco.
A video of the worm squirming in the fish has gone viral after the Maryland woman posted it on Facebook. Emily Randolph said the girl behind the counter at the Costco branch in Frederick told her another customer had just returned salmon with worms in it.
Randolph wrote on social media that she bought a packet of two-pound wild Atlantic cod at Costco on February 9, which had an expiration date of February 12.
The fish began to give off a stink before the "Sell By" date had arrived, after which she and her husband took it out for inspection. What they were not expecting was to find a living worm inside the package.
"It was big," Randolph told Fox 5. "I have even Googled it since then and that was a very large worm. It should have been caught before it was put out to the public to potentially eat."
Although the Costco store has given her a full refund, Randolph is not pleased with their attitude. She said the employee who took care of the return told her that other customers have also had the same issue.
"We were returning cod, but the person before us had just returned salmon that had worms in it," said Randolph.
The cod-worm video has been viewed 390,000 times and shared more than 6,000 times as of Monday morning.
The video has evoked feelings of concern and disgust in many viewers, but an equal number of them have said that it is natural for raw fish to have worms.
Costco has said that sometimes worms and parasites end up in raw food even after rigorous inspection. For this, they hand out a sheet to concerned customers, which Randolph said she has not received.
According to gastroenterologists, worms like these are killed while the fish is being cooked and do not lead to infections or symptoms. They advise that the fish must be brought to a 145 degrees temperature for 15 seconds to kill any parasite dwelling within.
