Is It Safe to Eat Raw Oysters During Any Month?

You may have heard that you shouldn't eat oysters in any month without the letter R in its name. Learn where this idea came from -- and why it's not true anymore -- in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://health.howstuffworks.com/food-nutrition/raw-oysters-are-safe-to-eat-every-month-year.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,
Lauren Vogelbaum. Here, there's an old saying that you should
never eat raw oysters in any month that doesn't have
the letter R in its name. Most months do. The
only ones without an R happened to be May, June, July,

(00:22):
and August. But why is this and is it really true?
The idea behind the saying is that it's unsafe to
eat oysters during these months because it could make you sick.
You'll notice that these four months fall in a block
towards the end of spring through the heat of summer
here in the northern hemisphere. That heat is why there

(00:44):
is a grain of truth behind this old saying. Okay,
we've talked before on the show about how bacteria live
all around us. Many are harmless, some are even helpful,
but some are pathogenic, meaning they can cause disease. There
are a number of species of bacteria in the genus
Vibrio that can cause nasty cases of food and water

(01:06):
borne illness. A cholera is caused by a Vibrio species.
Bacteria in this genus live mostly in salt water and
during warm weather, when the water temperature hits about sixty
eight degrees fahrenheit or twenty celsius. They absolutely thrive, for example,
in places like the Gulf of Mexico, where lots of
oysters are harvested, and in the past, before refrigeration technology

(01:31):
was available and affordable, oysters harvested in hot weather wouldn't
have been kept cold on their journey from the sea
to you. So eating raw oysters during the summer theoretically
could increase your chances of having contact with fibrio and
becoming sick. It doesn't help that it's hard to tell

(01:51):
with oysters and fibriel. Lots of the time, food that's
gone off and could give you food poisoning is gonna
smell or look bad. When food goes bad, it's because
microorganisms have started to eat it before you had a
chance to, and some of them might change the flavor
or color or texture of the food, and some of
them might be pathogenic. Unfortunately, oysters carrying fibriobacteria don't usually

(02:16):
look or taste any different, so there's no way to
know until twenty four to forty eight hours later, when
gastonitis sets in. You know the fever, chills, nausea, diarrhea.
It'll usually pass on its own, though cases can be
severe or even deadly. But let's be clear, infections caused
by Fibrio species are rare these days. Americans consume nearly

(02:41):
two point five billion oysters every year. The CDC estimates
that we have about eighty thousand Fibrio related illnesses and
one hundred deaths, about half of which are due to
contaminated food. That's not very many cases compared to say, salmonilla,
which causes one point two million illnesses and four hundred
and fifty deaths every year. Still, it's something to be

(03:04):
aware of, especially if you're at risk for having a
worse bout of illness from a potential Vibrio infection due
to being immunocompromised or having a liver condition. In those cases,
you might want to eat your oysters steamed, baked, deep fried.
There are plenty of non raw options, and cooking oysters
to a safe temperature will kill off any fibryobacteria that

(03:25):
may be present. However, these days, there are industry practices
and government regulations that make seafood like oysters as safe
as possible. A water quality can be monitored and for example,
in Louisiana, oyster boats are required to have on board
refrigeration to keep those slimy buddies cool from the moment

(03:46):
they leave the water, no matter what the weather's like.
Just make sure your raw oysters arrive to you refrigerated
or on ice. They should smell fresh and briny, not fishy,
and any reputable kitchen or market staff will be able
to tell you where they're from and when they were harvested,
because oysters legally have to come with those labels in

(04:07):
the United States. Today's episode is based on the article
Factor fiction Raw oysters are safe to eat every month
of the year on HowStuffWorks dot Com, written by Don Parretano.
Rain Stuff is production by Heart Radio in partnership with
how stuffworks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang.
Four more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

(04:30):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.