If heat kills food germs, why is it normal for Japanese to eat raw food?
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If it’s high quality, inspected, and super fresh you can eat almost anything raw.
This is why it’s normal for them to eat some food raw. The delicate flavors of fish are destroyed by cooking for example.
Most cultures eat raw food, even meat and fish. French have steak tartare. Hawaiians have poke. Eskimo/Inuit ate/eat raw whale, seal, bear, caribou, etc. Mexicans have ceviche. Ukranians have salo.
Chinese tend to cook everything and they think raw salad is scary.
Most food is safe to eat raw provided it’s fresh enough and clean enough. Sashimi is one example of fish that is so extremely fresh that it can just be sliced and eaten.
The reason why the vast majority of foods are cooked is because the vast majority of foods simply can’t be that fresh, or are otherwise invariably exposed to dangerous bacteria during the preparation process.
A lot of sushi is actually frozen first to kill parasites and in many countries it is required by law.
Japanese also eat lots of fermented foods like kimchi which have good bacteria (essentially probiotics) to help keep their gut healthy and help with any potential food contamination.
which raw food are we talking about here? several types of fish/seafood, if a high amount of effort is given to storage and sanitary conditions, are obviously safe to immediately eat raw as sushi/sashimi. Beef cuts can be sometimes eaten raw if very high amounts of effort are put into the processing, however since microbes beef cuts hang out on the surface, simply cooking the outside of the steak kills off most of all germs, while the remaining raw or lightly cooked meat inside is safer for consumption. crustacean meat tends to spoil insanely fast so most don’t try to eat that raw. meats like pork or poultry due to structure, and what parasites and germs they carry are much more difficult to keep safe without cooking, and honestly idk who would like the texture of raw chicken but i never want to meet them.
as for the why, undercooked or raw meats have a different flavor and texture. some prefer it that way, some don’t. it all comes down to they are willing to take a calculated risk for the taste.
Wasabi kills viruses and bacteria. It helps. Just like vinegar on salad kills viruses and bacteria. Why mayo can go unrefrigerated which happens to be freshly made with raw eggs, oil, and lemon (acidic).
For most raw food around the globe, they’re treated with processes that help kill parasites, such as curing with vinegar.
For sushi however, they’re supposed to be flash frozen right after being caught at industrial temperatures around -40 degrees in order to fully kill parasites (you can look up the required temp and time from the FDA). At this point the fish can be consumed without any other processes.
bonus fact: Before the flash freezing process was invented however, the japanese believed that wasabi made the raw fish safe for consumption. Contrary to popular belief around the world,, eating raw sushi with wasabi doesn’t do anything in terms of food safety, but is rather kept as a tradition because they really liked the taste combination of it.
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