I find her anti sushi hysteria to be childish.
Sushi grossed me out too.......... when I was 7 years old. Around then a sushi restaurant opened in town (or to be more accurate an existing chinese restaurant took a more pan asian outlook and hired sushi chefs) , my dad took me, forced me to try it... and it was great.
There are risks from parasites etc, but that is only with poorly handled fish. We have award winning restaurants in town that have been praised in the NY Times, and if our sushi is fine, I bet the sushi she can afford is even better.
When I was in 3rd grade we did a japan unit and did the whole eating seaweed thing. Did she just totally skip out on all that? Those kind of life lessons make you less apt to trend towards xenophobia when it comes to your palate