Sainsbury's shopper disgusted after finding live worm in cod fillet

The gross news of the day

The shopper captured the wiggling worm on camera (Credit: The Sun)

A shopper discovered a wriggling worm in a pack of supermarket cod that he'd bought for dinner - but the stomach-turning discovery may not be as shocking as it seems.

Effectively ruining the anonymous customer's plans for a Friday night fish and chip dinner, the purchaser told The Sun that he hadn’t even opened the cod before noticing the slimy parasitic worm that had gotten to his dinner before him.

After returning the fillet to the store, where the unlucky shopper received a £5 gift card and apparent gasps from some store employees, a spokesperson for Sainsbury’s apologised for the "rare" and "unpleasant" find.

A close-up of the cod worm (Credit: The Sun)

But according to a top chef such a find is actually pretty common, especially in a fish like cod.

Celebrity chef Gary O’Hanlon explained, in what could be a disturbing discovery to fish eaters, that fish are often riddled with worms - but at least finding a live one means the fish is fresh and not previously frozen.

O’Hanlon said, “A piece of white fish like cod has lots of worms. And you look at it and think that looks amazing but I look at it and say there’s a worm there and a worm there.”

We will never look at a piece of fish and think “amazing” again.

Luckily, cooking the fish at a certain temperature is usually pretty effective in killing the worms, which are known as cod worms or herring worms, and typically infect various saltwater fish.

Dr Jay Siwek told the Washington Post that there are methods for ridding your fish of worms (if you still have the stomach for fish), including, “freezing a fish for 24 to 72 hours at minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit or cooking it to 140 degrees Fahrenheit for at least 10 minutes.”

If you do eat the fish raw or uncooked, however, there is a small risk of infection, according to Dr Siwek.

He said: “Two kinds of problems can develop. Most of the time, the worm will simply crawl up the esophagus, where it is coughed out” or “it will burrow into the small intestine where it produces symptoms resembling appendicitis and can lead to surgery.”