Health Concerns

Worms, Dog Pee, and Other Things to Fear in Your Freshly Foraged or Raw Food

Ew.
Ew. Photo: iStock Photo

Yes, with farm-to-table vegetables come bugs, sometimes. Dirt, at the very least. And sometimes your pre-bagged spinach might have E. coli in it. We know this already. But we are alarmed to hear a story of “a crowded and well-regarded restaurant” in S.F. where they serve amuse buches of olive-oil poached fish, and where said fish at least once in recent months featured a living, moving, “unfurling” worm on its surface, possibly a parasitic nematode. The Bold Italic goes on to list out the many other gross things one risks consuming in our food, including mice and bugs that sometimes end up in the grape crushers during wine harvests, and the potential for dog pee on those locally foraged greens that may or may not have been plucked near a path, say in the Presidio, frequented by dogs. We have food-phobic friends who are paranoid enough about the cleanliness of every sous chefs hands in restaurant kitchens, so we really hope they don’t see this story or else they will likely never set foot in a restaurant again. [Bold Italic, Earlier]

Worms, Dog Pee, and Other Things to Fear in Your Freshly Foraged or Raw Food