Are The Worms In This Whole Foods Salmon Normal?

A woman is warning Whole Foods shoppers to avoid the salmon after she finds a parasite in her fillet. Viewers plead with her to calm down.

Hales (@nyc_hales) posted a video with her disturbing discovery on July 11. “Do not get salmon from Whole Foods,” she says to start the video. “I just found a worm in this salmon. Look at this.”

Hales flips the camera around and shows her salmon fillet. “Wait, hold on,” she says. “I cannot believe this. That is a worm. Look at that. I’m gonna be a vegetarian. What should I do? It actually burrowed itself deeper into the salmon. So I’m like, there’s probably more worms in there. I wasn’t going to eat it. But, like, do I contact Whole Foods?”

Viewers React To Whole Foods Salmon Discovery

In the comments, viewers urged Hales to relax and stop calling for Whole Foods salmon boycotts.

“That’s not a Whole Foods thing,” wrote one person. “It’s a parasite. Super common for wild-caught salmon. Harmless. Flash freezing and cooking kills it. Farm raised usually this is less of an issue. It’s not a bag thing and not something they’d do anything about.”

“Most salmon has worms to be honest,” said a second person. “Just cook it hella good.”

“I feel this happens when it’s not frozen,” a third person said. “For us, I only buy frozen or sushi grade salmon. It might still have parasites, but they’re dead at least.”

Should You Worry About Worms In Whole Foods Salmon?

The viewers who wrote into the comments to say this is normal are correct. Wild caught salmon can contain parasites that are easily killed in the cooking process. So it’s not something that Hales needs to contact Whole Foods about.

A Reddit user asked about this in a post to r/cooking two years ago. “I’m afraid to go near the salmon that I have now! Help, please. Is there always a risk of buying salmon with worms in them?”

“As long as you’re cooking the salmon to the correct internal temperature,” wrote one user. “You’ll be fine.”

“Any fish that eats other fish or marine life will have worms, yes. But they are flash frozen and the worms are dead,” wrote a second redditor.

A third person wrote, “Anyone who’s surprised enough at seeing a few nematodes in saltwater fish flesh that they’d make a video about it hasn’t done much fishing in their life. I can tell you that much.”

Nematodes are tiny worms that can be ingested in undercooked fish and cause a condition known as anisakiasis. That just means that you’ve got worms attached to the walls of your esophagus, stomach, and intestine.