Had a great time on Saturday with a buddy at an Oysters & Beer festival sponsored by a Pittsburgh area restaurant. We each had a couple dozen raw oysters and a few beers. Had a great time.
Monday (48 hours later) I felt kind of blah, slightly naseated and horrible diarrhea, with a fever. I have a private bathroom at work, so I went in. I mentioned the sequence of events to a friend who is a pediatrician and he said my history and symptoms were classic for Vibrio.
I texted the guy who ate oysters with me. He thought he had a “virus” and stayed home Monday (he is a teacher). Today I still have diarrhea, but am improving. Fever resolved, no longer naseated.
So, is food borne illness an accepted risk when eating raw oysters? Would you call the restaurant and mention it? If they offer me a comped meal, should I order oysters (is their handling a contributing factor here)?
I do think that it’s a risk you accept when you eat oysters, especially if you aren’t eating them at a restaurant from which you can see the body of water they came out of. However, I would also notify the restaurant. I’m sure they’d like to know. I wouldn’t expect any compensation though, I’d just do it to be a Girl Scout.
Eat raw seafood at your own risk. A lot of states require restaurants and caterers to post warnings about the danger of eating raw fish. You should inform the food provider or the local health department. Unless a lot of people who ate the oysters became ill there may be no way to attribute the problem to the oysters.
My girlfriend just went through this with well cooked mussels, so I did seem research and was surprised with what I found.
Shellfish poisoning is due to toxins the creature has soaked up from the water (produced by other creatures) and no amount of cooking will get rid of them.
On the web sites I went to, they listed 4 types of toxins causing different types of symptoms, one is flu like, one was something like paralysis.
Go read on shellfish poisoning, it’s pretty interesting.
Eat at your own risk…one additional risk is that the quality of oysters served at festivals, I have always found to be a bit lower on the totem pole, as they are typically acquired in bulk, and they aren’t always stored in the best conditions do the increased volumes…especially ones that are flown in.
I’d say assumed risk as well - most menus have little fine-print disclaimers letting the diner know there’s some risk associated with eating raw meat or shellfish and so on if that’s on the menu.
I also agree that letting the restaurant know they may be serving up something toxic makes sense, just to give them a heads-up so they don’t inadvertently make other people sick. Whether they offer a comped meal (and I wouldn’t be ordering the raw oysters if they did, personally) is up to them and ought not to be expected.
Related story: some years ago I bought some fresh salsa from Whole Foods. My then-boyfriend, his teenage son and a son’s friend and myself ate copious amounts of it with tortilla chips and within hours each of us had varying degrees of classic food poisoning (projectile vomiting, yay.) We knew it was the salsa because son’s friend didn’t like salsa and ate only chips and he was fine. The rest of us got sick pretty proportionately to how much salsa we’d eaten. I called WF the next day just to give them a heads-up and they were breezy, unconcerned and unhelpful. I understand shit happens (literally) but the store manager’s attitude in that instance was so cavalier it really put me off.
Feeling better today. My buddy the teacher called and let the restaurant know and they thanked him and wished us a speedy recovery. I’m jones into for Acme Oysters (NOLA) now.
Acme Oysters in NOLA. Yes!
Good to know you are feeling better.
There used to be irradiated oysters available at the Kroger in Athens, GA but nothing up here in the backwoods, of course. I think they were irradiated. Maybe pasteurized. They tasted raw, at least.
Now the difficult part: do I tell my gf? She is currently vacationing in Ireland with her mom. Although she loves raw oysters, she warned me about this event (she had heard things about the restaurant). I went anyway.
When she gets home it’s unlikely she’ll remember and ask if I went; all talk will be about her trip. Is it a sin of omission to keep quiet?
I work in food borne disease, specifically agents that cause gastroenteritis (diarrhea and vomiting). In the vast majority of cases, shellfish are contaminated in the water, before harvesting. This is usually due to sewage intrusion into the growing beds (yum!). There are some processing steps that can be done after harvesting that can reduce the microbial load, but most consumers of raw oysters don’t like them because they change the texture/taste of the oyster. The two infections that are most likely after consuming raw or undercooked shellfish are Vibrio and norovirus. Fever would suggest you had Vibrio.
The restaurant is under no obligation to comp you, however, most restaurants like to know. That way they can dump their most recent shipment and hopefully avert a large outbreak. The last thing they want is a headline with their name linked to a food borne outbreak, even if the contamination is beyond their control. You might also want to contact the health department. They will likely trace the oyster shipment, which will let other recipients know that the oysters are contaminated. The restaurant may or may not have done this.
That depends upon how she would react if you said, “Honey, while you were gone I ate some oysters from that restaurant you warned me about and, guess what? You were right.” Then blink the puppy dog eyes at her.
If her reactions would be likely warm and friendly, then I’d say, “go for it.” Otherwise, maybe just talk about how Green Ireland is.
Also, don’t assume the waitperson’s recommendation is good. A friend at a local seafood spot told me they had “contests” to see who could sell the most of whatever fish was getting old. The same few people always won, because most of the waiters refused to give lousy advice.
She’d be cool about it, I just hate revealing my stopidity. Her advice is always good, but I often ignore it.:smack: