This is excerpted from Gina Mallet’s blog, from Friday Oct 17, 2008
“Living with risk — food isn’t ever going to be 100% safe
Last week I took a risk and ate two pieces of butterfish sushi at the excellent Japango — and with no deleterious effect. Butterfish is also known as Escolar, a member of the mackerel family and contains histamine, and some people are allergic to it and can become quite ill after eating it. In fact I heard from a couple of people who had been affected by butterfish/escolar and the illness was in both cases bad enough to land the eaters in hospital.
I ate the fish accepting the risk. I accept the fact that food isn’t l00 percent safe. That’s why I continue to drink raw milk when I can (in Pennsylvania) because it tastes so much better than the coffee creamer aka pasteurized milk. And I continue to enjoy soft raw milk cheeses like Brie, Camembert, Epoisses which are their best when under sixty days old. Officially no raw milk cheese less than 60 days old may be sold in Canada. But the imports are still available. They are monitored by Health Canada. So far I haven’t heard of any cases of poisoning. But I have a friend who landed up in intensive care for four days after she ate a local raw milk cheese (the maker is out of business)….”
Read the rest of this piece. It’s not long, but it’s totally worthwhile. Click here to go to Gina Mallet’s blog.
The Bovine 