# Most fish in supermarkets have worms????

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-fish-in-supermarkets-have-worms/230304>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 21, 2004, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-fish-in-supermarkets-have-worms/230304 "2004-02-21T01:24:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![igloorex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/858c86/32.png) [@igloorex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igloorex)\
**Post date:** [February 21, 2004, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-fish-in-supermarkets-have-worms/230304/1 "2004-02-21T01:24:55Z")

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A friend of ours recently cooked up some fish she had bought in a wholefoods market. After eating most of it, she discovered little white worms in the meat (about 1 1/2" inches).

She brought the fish back to complain, and the fish monger told her that many kinds of ocean fish (cod, swordfish and maybe some others) have these kind of worms. He told her they were always there but most people don’t notice them and they’re not visible until the fish is cooked thoroughly.

Sorry for the sketchy description (this is a third hand story) – but can this be true?

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**Author:** ![Cillasi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@Cillasi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cillasi)\
**Post date:** [February 21, 2004, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-fish-in-supermarkets-have-worms/230304/2 "2004-02-21T01:32:07Z")

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[http://www.fao.org/wairdocs/tan/x5951e/x5951e01.htm](http://www.fao.org/wairdocs/tan/x5951e/x5951e01.htm)

It’s true.

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**Author:** ![paul\_smars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3be4f8/32.png) [@paul\_smars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paul_smars)\
**Post date:** [February 21, 2004, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-fish-in-supermarkets-have-worms/230304/3 "2004-02-21T04:45:36Z")

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Sorry of off topic, but how do I subscribe to a topic w/o posting. The old GUI had this option, but I can not find it on this new GUI.

P

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**Author:** ![Canadjun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/76d3ee/32.png) [@Canadjun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Canadjun)\
**Post date:** [February 21, 2004, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-fish-in-supermarkets-have-worms/230304/4 "2004-02-21T14:05:42Z")

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I just found “Subscribe to this thread” under “Thread tools”. Maybe that will do it. 😃

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**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\
**Post date:** [February 21, 2004, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-fish-in-supermarkets-have-worms/230304/5 "2004-02-21T19:20:45Z")

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Cecil has quite a bit of information about worm-infested fish in the column [Can you get worms from eating sushi?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_060.html), but he doens’t say exactly how common infestation is.