Delicious meats but organs contain deadly poison

Grass carp is very nutritious, but even a small amount of their bile can be fatal because it contains toxins.

Grass carp bile

According to Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Dang (former Director of the Department of Food Safety and Hygiene, Ministry of Health), grass carp bile is very toxic, but many people mistakenly use this part to treat diseases, leading to poisoning and even death.

Illustration photo.

The reason is that fish bile contains alcohol which causes bleeding and damage to internal organs, especially the kidney tubules. The larger the fish, the higher the toxicity.

Not only grass carp, other types of fish such as common carp, silver carp, and parrot fish can cause acute kidney failure, but the most serious is grass carp bile. Moreover, the word-of-mouth treatment only occurs with grass carp bile, so emergency cases caused by this type of fish are the most common with many dangerous complications including septic shock, acute bleeding, cerebral edema, pulmonary edema, and tubular nephritis.

Symptoms of poisoning after drinking fish bile are often abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fatigue, slow reaction, yellow eyes, little urine, swollen legs, and convulsions. If not treated promptly, the patient will die.

Associate Professor Tran Dang said that the Food Safety Department has made many recommendations for people to absolutely not use grass carp bile in any form or for any purpose, but there are still many people who disregard this.

Sharing the same opinion, Dr. Cao Thi Thanh Huong, Deputy Director of the Center for Inheritance and Application of Hanoi Oriental Medicine Association, Head of Oriental Medicine Clinic, Agricultural General Hospital also said that currently there is no medical document confirming that grass carp bile can improve health or cure diseases for humans. Therefore, using this part is very useless and puts the eater at risk of poisoning.

According to experts, grass carp is very good for the body, but when processing, it is important to remove all the bile to avoid breaking it and spreading it to the meat.

Toad liver and eggs

Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Thi Lam, Deputy Director of the National Institute of Nutrition, said that toad meat is very good for the elderly, malnourished children, slow growth, and rickets. However, toad resin (in the glands behind the ears, above the eyes, and on the toad's skin), liver, and ovaries can cause poisoning because it contains bufotoxine - an extremely toxic substance that can kill people in a very short time.

Therefore, experts recommend absolutely not eating toad liver and eggs. In addition, during the process of butchering, if these parts get caught in the toad meat, it is also very dangerous.

Talking about the dangers of being poisoned by toads, Dr. Lam Quoc Hung, Head of the Food Poisoning Surveillance Department, also said that poisoning symptoms can appear 1-2 hours after eating (maybe sooner if drinking alcohol or beer) with symptoms such as bloating, upper abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, anxiety, and rapid heartbeat.

After that, the victim may fall into a state of cardiovascular collapse, sensory disturbances, dizziness, hallucinations, cold sweats, difficulty breathing, respiratory arrest, cardiac arrest; urinary retention, oliguria, anuria and severe acute renal failure. If the toad resin splashes directly, the mucous membranes of the eyes will burn and swell.

"The Food Safety Department has recommended that people should only use processed toad products in the form of food and medicine that have been approved for circulation by authorities," said Mr. Hung.

Puffer fish liver and eggs

Associate Professor Tran Dang added that among aquatic species, puffer fish contain the most toxins. That is tetrodotoxin (C11H17O8N3) - a neurotoxin, very toxic, causing high mortality. In particular, tetrodotoxin is soluble in water, not destroyed by heat, cooked or dried, the toxin still exists.

The blood, eyes, ovaries, liver, genitals, and skin of the puffer fish contain this poison. Although the meat is not poisonous, when the fish dies, spoils, or is hit, the poison from these parts will seep into the muscles, poisoning the entire fish.

“Eating puffer fish is very dangerous to human health and life. This type of fish contains one of the five toxins found in seafood, tetrodotoxin - a neurotoxin. In addition, they also contain toxins that cause diarrhea, muscle paralysis, neurosis and memory loss.

For safety, many countries in the world, especially Japan, pay great attention to instructing people on how to prepare this type of fish. Immediately after catching, users must remove the internal organs of the puffer fish, and when eating, avoid eating dead or rotten fish. Therefore, inexperienced people should stay away from this type of fish," said Associate Professor Tran Dang.

According to Online Knowledge