An old schoolmate asked recently about the safety protocol for eating raw fish during the Chinese New Year season. The answer is simple. Eat only raw fish that had been super-frozen for at least one to two days at temperatures of -35°C to -40°C. Or frozen at -20°C for a week. If one intends to prepare raw fish at home, then note that house freezers seldom get colder than -18°C. Therefore, it is recommended to store raw fish in home freezers for around 3 weeks at -18°C before use in raw fish dishes.
Without freezing at the appropriate temperature and duration, raw fish can contain viable bacteria such as salmonella, listeria, and Group B streptococcus, which has caused several outbreaks in Singapore over the last decade. Perhaps even worse outcomes might be parasitic infections from tapeworms and the very common Anisakis worms, resulting in a condition called “anisakiasis”.
