Clarifying confusion about parasites.

[diggerpax]

There seems to be a lot of confusion about worms in meat, and they all seemed to be getting lumped into the "worms is worms" category. Many of you have shrugged off the worms in bears as if they are no big deal- bad idea. Bears, like pigs, carry trichinella. After eating a larval cyst that is in the muscle, the adult worms reproduce in your intestine, then migrate out into your muscle to form a cyst. If they only go to your muscle it is not a big deal- aches and pains is about it. The danger is an aberrant migration into your CNS or heart tissue- this can be deadly. Freezing meat for >20 days can kill larva, but not 100% of the time- cook bear well just like pork. The worms I think you are all getting confused with here are the tapeworm cysts found in moose, elk, etc- although gross, these taennia species won't hurt you- but they will give your dogs tapeworms so heads up. The other I see commonly confused here are the "rice worms" in birds breasts. These are sarcocysts, and will not hurt you, although I wouldn't eat them raw if I had a choice. They reproduce in the intestine of carnivores with no harm cause, they simpy pass out in the feces and are re-ingested by waterfowl. Once again, don't feed these to your dogs- which brings up another great point- don't feed any raw meat to your dogs- sure wolves eat raw meat, but wolves are loaded with parasites, and I doubt you are raising a wolf in your house- a dog is a domestic animal with a GI system and Immunity that has changed a great deal since their days in the wild. These are just generals about the most common parasites, but there are always exceptions and odd-balls, so please error on the side of caution.

[pupper]

There seems to be a lot of confusion about worms in meat, and they all seemed to be getting lumped into the "worms is worms" category. Many of you have shrugged off the worms in bears as if they are no big deal- bad idea. Bears, like pigs, carry trichinella. After eating a larval cyst that is in the muscle, the adult worms reproduce in your intestine, then migrate out into your muscle to form a cyst. If they only go to your muscle it is not a big deal- aches and pains is about it. The danger is an aberrant migration into your CNS or heart tissue- this can be deadly. Freezing meat for >20 days can kill larva, but not 100% of the time- cook bear well just like pork. The worms I think you are all getting confused with here are the tapeworm cysts found in moose, elk, etc- although gross, these taennia species won't hurt you- but they will give your dogs tapeworms so heads up. The other I see commonly confused here are the "rice worms" in birds breasts. These are sarcocysts, and will not hurt you, although I wouldn't eat them raw if I had a choice. They reproduce in the intestine of carnivores with no harm cause, they simpy pass out in the feces and are re-ingested by waterfowl. Once again, don't feed these to your dogs- which brings up another great point- don't feed any raw meat to your dogs- sure wolves eat raw meat, but wolves are loaded with parasites, and I doubt you are raising a wolf in your house- a dog is a domestic animal with a GI system and Immunity that has changed a great deal since their days in the wild. These are just generals about the most common parasites, but there are always exceptions and odd-balls, so please error on the side of caution.
great insight here,
but I think the post is in the wrong forum???