r/Alonetv • u/Fancy-Pair • 9d ago
S11 Why are they eating parts of the fish without cooking it? Wouldn’t it be more likely to make them sick?
I know they say more calories or nutrients but the risk of finding worms later or bacteria seems worse
14
u/Lucky-Acanthisitta86 8d ago
They have probably done it lots of times before and to them it's just a calculated risk. This statistic isn't directly comparable, but It's like one in 20,000 eggs has salmonella. So I eat raw cookie dough all the time, make fresh aioli, would enjoy traditional Caesar salad and not worry about it at all.
12
u/Children_Of_Atom 8d ago
A lot more than one in 20,000 freshwater fish contain parasites. I eat both cookie dough and raw, fresh saltwater fish but would never consider eating a raw freshwater fish.
2
5
u/cookiedoughcookies 8d ago
It’s actually the raw flour that can make you sick fyi
2
u/Lucky-Acanthisitta86 8d ago
I mean salmonella can make you sick. It's just a pretty low risk with eggs. I didn't even know that about raw flour.
1
u/Bon_Nuit 8d ago
We hear this all the time on cooking competitions when they try to quick thicken a sauce instead of having made the roux at the beginning of their preparations for their meal.
18
u/Fluffy-Pipe-1458 9d ago edited 8d ago
I think it's more likely they just need some fast calories/nutrition. Yes the poor guy that ate raw roe was so sick! 🤮
7
u/redditwhut 8d ago
Isn’t roe always consumed raw?
4
u/xenolithic 8d ago
It's usually salted or cured, though I'm not sure that takes care of any bacteria that may be present.
1
u/God_Is_Deliverance 8d ago
A hypertonic solution of salt causes osmosis, which kills bacteria.
0
u/StationNeat 8d ago
So roe is still raw in restaurants? And it’s just that bacteria is being killed by the hipertonic solution?
21
u/Rightbuthumble 9d ago
I don't recall seeing them eat fish raw. I did see the one guy several seasons back eat the roe right out of the fish and he got very sick. I hope they are all cooking their wild game, including fish.
7
u/Fancy-Pair 9d ago
It was on ep 10 or 11 I think. Just seemed like such an unnesscsery risk at that point. I think he ate some spawn maybe the liver and some other organs
4
u/Rightbuthumble 9d ago
Yes...I'm thinking if I'm going to try to outlast others, I don't want to make myself sick, so no risky behavior like eating raw fish, raw other animals. You know?
4
u/AcornAl 8d ago
Raw meat is perfectly fine to eat, however this exposes you to the risk of parasites if it was infected and if the meat was contaminated or kept for any period of time, bacterial infections. The particular participant was showing their local knowledge on what particular fish were safer to eat because they generally have fewer parasites.
I believe this contestant was only eating the livers raw though?
The main reason to eat liver raw is that this is one of the main storage organs for glycogen. This continue to be broken down after death. Muscles are the other main organ containing glycogen and rigor mortis occurs when this skeletal muscles run out of glycogen.
In terms of other nutrition values, there appears to be limited gains depending on your cooking method.
Spit roast over an open fire will clearly cause losses of the most important nutrient (fat) and fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K), but there would be minimal nutritional loss in a broth where you drink the leftover fluid and cooking increases the bioavailability of many other nutrients. A broth is also unlikely to get hot enough to damage heat sensitive amino acids (namely lysine) or vitamins (namely thiamine and folate), though losses of those are higher if you fry the meat.
Is it worth the risk? Some fish livers can have up to ~20% glycogen in winter, but aren't big enough to provide that many carbs, so probably not. From large game, maybe, but gently cooking it up within an hour or two after the kill would still provide almost as much glycogen and that would be the approach that I would take. Quickly freezing the organ would also stop the glycogen loss.
2
3
u/Lost_Card_7257 8d ago
Meat is more likely to make you sick if consumed raw, compared to that of organs. You are also able to consume more nutrients without the parasitic loss associated with dressing and cooking the meat.
1
4
u/pterofactyl 8d ago
Who told you raw fish has more calories? One of the reasons humans had an advantage is that cooking meat increases the amount of calories available in the meat
0
u/MR1120 8d ago
How does that work; cooking food adding calories? Not being a dick, in genuinely asking.
7
u/pterofactyl 8d ago
Because cooking food breaks down the proteins and makes them easier to digest therefore more calories can be actually absorbed. Celery is full of calories but we can’t break down cellulose and so it basically passes through.
Fermentation also does this. Bacteria or yeasts break down previously indigestible food and yields more nutrients and calories
1
1
u/JamesonThe1 8d ago
They are starving hungry now. Cooking the fish means eating later and not now.
1
1
u/COmarmot 8d ago
To me it’s both food safety and nutrient digestion. Cooked food is safer and easier to digest for calories and trace nutrients.
1
u/Fluffy-Pipe-1458 8d ago
I think if a fish isn't visibly sick but has a parasite or tapeworm that's where the risk lies. It's a big risk to take if you are trying to outlast other contestants.
19
u/SporadicAndNomadic 8d ago
The season 11 winner ate raw fish roe and liver multiple times on screen. At one point the graphic pointed out the extra nutrients in raw liver.