Sushi chefs claim that a European Union health and safety directive about freezing fish would ruin the quality of their food.

I think there will always be a fight between health inspectors and raw fish makers… Sushi chefs who train for years to become sushi masters, will argue that freezing and then defrosting the fish can ruin the quality, especially the texture of popular breeds such as salmon, mackerel and whitefish. Health Safety Agencies are more concerned with that people accidentally get sick from eating infected, raw fish.

According to an article in the Telegraph the EU says that raw fish must be frozen to a temperature of at least -20C (-4F) for more than a day in order to kill parasites. The freezing is intended to kill off parasites and roundworm larvae, which can cause abdominal pain or, occasionally, diarrhoea. I think they have enforced the regulations in Norway for a while, the EU rule was passed in 2006. The British Food Standards Agency which is responsible for implementing European directives, has first now started to crack down on sushi restaurants in the UK.

The chefs say the law is confusing because shellfish, such as clams and sea urchin, are exempt from the rules. A sushi chef called for the FSA to scrap the rules in favor of a chef licensing system - arguing that properly trained chefs can detect infected fish.

I vote fro sushi a licensing system. I agree that it should not be as easy as it sometimes seems to open a sushi restaurant and chefs should have a proper sushi chef training which of course should include handling fresh fish. The problem is not necessarily with the freshness of most of the raw fish that’s sold, but with the way it is handled, cut and transported. Freezing the fish will do nothing to solve that part of the problem. It can be frozen and improperly defrosted, then handled and cut by untrained or mediocre chefs who haven’t taken proper hygiene precautions.

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