Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff Works. Hey, brain stuff,
Speaker 1: it's Christian saga here. Did you know that every month
Speaker 1: sands May, June, July, and August has the letter R
Speaker 1: in its name. Don't look it up, take my word
Speaker 1: for it. Did you also know there's an old wives
Speaker 1: tale that you shouldn't eat raw oysters in months without
Speaker 1: the letter R in it. Once again, you don't need
Speaker 1: to look it up. I'm not gonna lie to you.
Speaker 1: The logic behind this is that if you eat oysters
Speaker 1: during these months you could get sick. Sounds like crazy talk, right,
Speaker 1: and perhaps so, perhaps not. But if you think about it,
Speaker 1: the months without an R fall during the summer in
Speaker 1: the northern hemisphere, and the truth is that if you
Speaker 1: eat raw oysters in the summer, you do run the
Speaker 1: risk of getting violently sick. That's because, and let me
Speaker 1: tell you this does not come from an old wife.
Speaker 1: When the weather is warm back to area known as
Speaker 1: Vibrio vulnificious and Vibrio parahemoliticus thrive, and these pathogens multiply
Speaker 1: like nobody's business in warm water, especially in the Gulf
Speaker 1: of Mexico, where there are a lot of oysters harvested,
Speaker 1: so eating raw oysters during the summer theoretically could increase
Speaker 1: your chances of becoming sick. Unlike chicken, pork, or hamburger,
Speaker 1: all of which stink to high heaven when they go bad,
Speaker 1: oysters do not, so you can't tell when an oyster
Speaker 1: has turned the corner. They're also usually not ranted to
Speaker 1: the taste. However, you'll feel the effects about twenty four
Speaker 1: to forty eight hours after eating an oyster that's gone
Speaker 1: bad with vibrio chills, fever, vomiting, diarrhea, you know the drill.
Speaker 1: In some people, high doses of Vibrio can actually be
Speaker 1: life threatening, especially the elderly, those with compromised immune systems,
Speaker 1: and people who drink too much alcohol. But let's be clear,
Speaker 1: infections caused by all Vibrio species are rare. The Centers
Speaker 1: for Disease Control and Prevention estimates they are about eighty
Speaker 1: thousand vibrio illnesses of all types each year in the
Speaker 1: United States. More than half are related to eating contaminated food.
Speaker 1: The most common strain, Vibrio parahemolyticus, is responsible for forty
Speaker 1: five thousand illnesses annually. Those numbers are a drop in
Speaker 1: the bucket compared to salmonila, which the c d C
Speaker 1: says is responsible for more than one million illnesses each year.
Speaker 1: Those eating oysters harvested from the Gulf Coast, where the
Speaker 1: water typically is warmer than along the East and West coasts,
Speaker 1: should be on guard. That's because vibrio thrives when the
Speaker 1: water temperature near sixty eight degrees fahrenheit or twenty degrees celsius.
Speaker 1: So if you're going to saddle up to an oyster
Speaker 1: bar during the summer months and are concerned whether these
Speaker 1: slimy suckers are contamidated, well ask the chef where they're
Speaker 1: harvested from. Most chefs are reliable and only by from
Speaker 1: reputable fisheries and purveyors they trust. Or you can just
Speaker 1: stick to the cold water East or West coast oysters
Speaker 1: until the chillier months return in the Gulf. Today's episode
Speaker 1: was written by John Paraitano, produced by Dylan Fagan, and
Speaker 1: for more on this and other topics, please visit us
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com.