Food Poisoning | Overview

What is food poisoning?

Food poisoning (also known as food-borne illness) occurs when you eat or drink something that contains harmful germs (bacteria, viruses or parasites). Sometimes bacteria produce a toxin in food and it’s the toxin that causes the problem.

How do you get food poisoning from fish?

There are two ways to get food poisoning from eating fish:

• Ciguatera (say: “seeg-wha-terra”) poisoning: This happens when you eat a reef fish (any fish living in warm tropical water) that has eaten a certain poisonous food. This poison does not go away when the fish is cooked or frozen.
• Scombroid poisoning: A substance called histamine builds up in some fish when they get too warm after they’re caught. Histamine is a chemical that serves as a kind of alarm to let your immune system know that an infection is attacking part of the body. If you eat a fish that was not properly cooled after it was caught, you may react to the histamine that is released into your body.