Skip This Type Of Sushi If You Want To Avoid Food Poisoning

You’ll rarely meet someone who only “kind of” likes sushi. If you’re a sushi fan, you really love it. Maybe you’re the rainbow roll type, meaning you get to sample nearly every type of fish the restaurant has in stock that day, or you like to stick to a tried-and-true favorite, like tuna nigiri.

Still, as a sushi lover myself, one little worry always nags at me right before I dig into a tray of salmon avocado rolls: I’m eating raw fish, which means my favorite takeout meal could lead to a vicious bout of food poisoning.

With that in mind, I decided to talk to a handful of experts to find out which types of raw fish actually put me at the greatest risk of food poisoning, and which ones I can feel relatively safe eating. Here’s what they had to say.

This type of sushi puts you at the greatest risk for food poisoning.

According to Sam Martin , a senior director and food safety expert at Microbac Laboratories, the amount of harmful bacteria living on raw fish depends mostly on how the fish was raised and stored, rather than on the species of fish you’re consuming.

“The most common bacteria associated with raw fish are Listeria monocytogenes, Vibrio, and Salmonella,” he said. “The incidence of these bacteria is less species-dependent and more a function of the water the fish lived in and the way it was processed and stored after it was caught. Storing the fish below 40°F will delay the growth of any bacteria of concern.”

You can certainly ask your server how the fish on the menu was raised, stored and processed, but they may not know the answer. So, in the absence of that information, Martin suggests steering clear of raw salmon.

Salmon has a higher risk of parasites than other fish, as there’s been an uptick in