First of all, if you don't want to be informed about some of the foods you eat, stop reading now. I had a food purveyor who happens to be an ex-chef come into my kitchen while I was cleaning some fish. I was inspecting the fillets for any signs of worms that particular fish was susceptible to. The guy asked what I was doing; I explained. He then asked why bother, you can't see the worms once the fish is cooked. I told him I was no longer in the mood to have him in the kitchen. These worms pose no threat to humans upon consumption, but they are kind of gross when you find them raw. I posted the question on a cooking forum, whether you remove the parasites or not, and I was shocked to see a 50/50 split amongst cooks and chefs. I wanted to hear from the other side of the table whether you thought it to be disgusting that you might be eating parasitic worms with your fish, or if out of sight out of mind came into play. Sorry if this turned anybody off from seafood. It's just a fact of life.
I think you are awesome for wanting to take out the worms. I agree that I would think it's disgusting that I'd be eating parasitic worms. But, I realize that I end up eating a whole lot of disgusting stuff -- if I thought about it too much, I'd probably eat nothing. What I find more disturbing are the factory farms and the fact that now virtually all protein -- poultry, pork, beef and even fish is full of feces, Fish are full of beef and pork feces in particular, since the large CAFOs send the poop into the waterways, which kills a lot of the seafood, anyway. The hard thing is to unring the bell -- once you know about it, you either don't eat the food item, or you have to make a conscious attempt not to think about it.
*shrug* Out of sight out of mind for me. So many foods would be off the table under the paradigm of too much pickiness. Figs, guavas, etc. I have all kinds of fruit bearing trees on my property and I'd rather eat a worm that does me no harm than pesticides that I can't pronounce and that alter the syntax of my DNA.
Many perch in lakes across Minnesota are infested with worms. You can easily see them through the perch's yellow/white skin as black dots. They used to bother me when I was younger and I'd throw all those fish back. Later in life I came to the realization that people all across the world eat worms and bugs of all sorts. We find them disgusting because our culture taught us this. We call them parasites because they infest a host feeding off of its body with no real benefit to the host itself. The fact is, they're just another tasty animal. Now I keep and eat those same fish. No big deal.
If it causes no harm, and there is no evidence of it to the eater, then it doesn't bother me personally.
thankfully, i don't have that problem, since i'm a moral vegetarian... and worms are easy to see/remove, if they're in an apple, or any other 'plant'... that's another good reason to give up eating your fellow members of the animal kingdom, folks! ;-)
Each of us has gross-outs and worms are one of those for me. I wouldn't use fish with worms as fertilizer, never mind eat it, but I do eat a lot of wild berries and don't get too bothered by finding the odd bug in them. As they say, milage may vary.
