When I was living in Okinawa, during my days as a physician in the U.S. Navy, I saw restaurants advertising Fugu. Curious, I looked this up and learned that Fugu is a species of blowfish, or pufferfish, found in local waters. It is a revered delicacy in Japan and always eaten raw. Back then, in the early 1980's, a Fugu meal would set you back over $150, a huge sum.
Fugu has a small problem. Eating it can kill you. Really. The fish contains a toxin, tetrodotoxin, one of the most potent neurotoxins known. It is 1200 times more potent than cyanide. The toxin is found in the sex organs and viscera of the fish. When preparing Fugu for consumption, if any of the flesh comes in contact with those organs, it will become toxic such that even eating a tiny amount can kill. There is no antidote to tetrodotoxin.
Fugu preparation is carefully regulated in Japan and chefs preparing Fugu must undergo years of extensive training and be certified. The final exam for a Fugu chef is to prepare a Fugu meal and eat it. Even so, about 50 people in Japan die each year from Fugu poisoning, mostly from Fugu prepared by uncertified chefs.
An interesting fact about Fugu is that even the most careful preparation does not eliminate all contamination of the Fugu flesh with toxin so people who eat a Fugu meal typically experience some tingling in their tongues and fingers from what is actually a mild degree of toxicity. I read that a group of investors got together with the idea of sea farming Fugu to cash in on its popularity. The blowfish were raised in pens and fed commercial fish food. The venture failed. Why? What the investors didn't know is that Fugu toxicity comes from their natural diet. Pufferfish eat tiny invertebrates, algae, and coral that contain minute amounts of this toxin and concentrate it in their organs. The farmed pufferfish did not have the toxin and people who ate them did not get the tingly aftereffect. Demand for the farmed product crashed and they lost their shirts.
I love raw oysters. There is something about the fresh, subtle, salty sea-flavor of truly fresh oysters. The best have a slight zinc after taste that I find very pleasant. One of my most pleasant, enduring memories is of sitting on the deck of a sailboat anchored in the bay of a small island off the coast of Venezuela, after a grueling medical mission trip. A small boat with two men pulled alongside with a bushel basket of oysters that must have been harvested minutes earlier. After our hosts negotiated a mutually agreeable price, they hopped aboard and began shucking. For the next half hour or so, our party of seven ate over one hundred tiny, delectable oysters with a spritz of fresh lime and a drop of tabasco. That rates as one of the best meals I have ever had.
By contrast, I dislike cooked oysters; they lose all the texture, subtlety, and flavor that I enjoy.
I have had “AmeriPure” oysters. These are subjected to a process of hot/cold pasteurization that claims to kill harmful bacteria yet preserve the raw oyster otherwise unchanged. They have none of the fresh taste that unprocessed oysters have. It analogous to comparing pasteurized orange juice to fresh-squeezed. The first is a poor version of the second.
In a recent Orlando Sentinel story (The Gulf's deadly harvest, Sunday, September 18, 2016), it was reported that 700 people have fallen ill from consuming raw oysters since 1989. That's 25 per year and “nearly half died”. To put this in perspective, Japan, with half our population, has 50 deaths per year from Fugu while we have less than thirteen per year from consuming raw oysters. Given that Fugu is extremely expensive I think I can safely say that many more people each year eat raw oysters, and more of them, than eat Fugu.
Food regulators, i.e. our Federal government, want to require that all oysters be treated to render them “safe”. The oyster industry is against this because of the added expense and effect on those who make a living from providing oysters to the public. As to taste, the article states that consumers other than oyster connoisseurs “generally cannot taste the difference”. I beg to differ. I am no connoisseur but I can clearly taste a huge difference.
The Sentinel article seems to clearly favor more Federal regulation. The article recounts several heartbreaking stories of people who fell ill or died from consumption of raw oysters. You would have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by these tragedies. Is the answer, however, to eliminate our choice to eat fresh, raw oysters? Everyone in the story had one or more medical conditions that put them at greater risk of illness from bacteria sometimes found in oysters. I have never eaten an oyster in a restaurant where I did not see a clear warning that eating raw food could cause illness. It is a chance I am willing to take to enjoy raw oysters occasionally.
Several things bother me about the article. The oyster industry is clearly presented as against regulations to keep us safe. We already have regulations in place to safeguard the public. Regulations for stricter refrigeration alone reduced illnesses from oysters by 40% in one year from 2013 to 2014 and more recent figures are expected to be lower still. Even the Sentinel admits that existing regulations are not being enforced. In an editorial, the Sentinel reports that 4 deaths in a six week period in 2011 were from oysters from a single supplier. The supplier had received 15 warnings letters from the State of Florida since 2010 and was ultimately fined- $100. It is infuriating that from this, the writer takes the leap that the answer is more, stricter regulations. Am I missing something here? If existing regulations are not enforced, is the answer more regulations? I have never forgotten a statement by an attorney that I read years ago. It states, “extreme situations make for bad case law”. As a physician, I perform operations that I know will help 98% of patients but may harm 2%. Am I to deny those 98% surgery to avoid the 2%? Are we to deprive hundreds of thousands of citizens the pleasure of enjoying fresh, unpasteurized raw oysters in order to prevent 25 illnesses and 12 deaths?
The unfortunate subjects in the story are zealous advocates of more regulation. This is certainly understandable. If I were in their position, I might feel the same. Does this mean that no one should ever have access to fresh, unpasteurized, raw oysters if they so choose?
To which we may soon add, no raw oysters
The real question is: how far do we allow the nanny state to go to protect us from every possible malady? I am not an anarchist. I do believe that some common sense regulations are necessary for public safety in many areas, not just food. On the other hand, I think there comes a point where the government needs to back away and let people decide for themselves. Yeah, its just oysters now but is just another nail in the coffin of personal liberty.
For my part, as a physician and occasional consumer of raw oysters, I say, “leave my oysters alone!”
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