I make sushi often, and i never use sushi-grade fish...i simply buy fresh fish from the market. I know the requisites of frozen for 20 hours etc., but I know for sure there are many restaurants in europe that certainly do not (exclusively) use frozen fish. Moreover, I ate sushi often in the years I lived in Thailand, and well...pretty sure they use non frozen either. Never a problem, but, I realise that this does not prove anything..
Does anyone have an idea of the size of the risk, i.e. the incidence of parasite infection after eating non-frozen fish raw? I am asking after research..i cannot really find it.
These articles were informative, but no info on size of risks: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3374688/ http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/41/9/1297.full
This study gives a bit more information: http://cmr.asm.org/content/23/2/399.full
"During 1973 to 2006, 188 outbreaks of seafood-associated infections, causing 4,020 illnesses, 161 hospitalizations, and 11 deaths, were reported to the Food-Borne Disease Outbreak Surveillance System. Most of these seafood-associated outbreaks (143 [76.1%]) were due to a bacterial agent; 40 (21.3%) outbreaks had a viral etiology, and 5 (2.6%) had a parasitic cause (Table 1)"
Now, considering this is not concentrating on raw fish only, but all fish consumption, I would say the chances of getting sick from eating raw fish with a parasite are microscopically tiny? Agreed?
Is there someone who could get me this report: this seems to be the basis of the safety measures
American Gastroenterological Association. 2000. Determination of the incidence of gastrointestinal parasitic infections from the consumption of raw seafood in the U.S. [Report under FDA Contract 223-97-2328 with Life Sciences Research Office, American Society for Nutritional Sciences]. AGA, Bethesda, MD.