Trichinosis

Appears in
On Food and Cooking

By Harold McGee

Published 2004

  • About

Trichinosis is a disease caused by infection with the cysts of a small parasitic worm, Trichina spiralis. In the United States, trichinosis was long associated with undercooked pork from pigs fed garbage that sometimes included infected rodents or other animals. Uncooked garbage was banned as pork feed in 1980, and since then the incidence of trichinosis in the United States has declined to fewer than ten cases annually. Most of these are not from pork, but from such game meats as bear, boar, and walrus.