We eat more fish and vegetables and from the time I can remember we only usually have meat once a week. It was like tradition, meat on Sundays.

That “rule” isn’t very strict though for we sometimes have meat on Wednesdays too. But in general, we have more fish (and other seafood) as compared to having pork beef of chicken in a week’s time.

My mother is ‘allergic” even to the smell of chicken meat and I have the same aversion to beef. So if there’s going to be meat on the table, it must be pork even if we all hate the fat (only my father used to love that part in pork).

map-of-sorsogon.jpgBut now, (since October 11) the ban on shellfish from Sorsogon Bay has been imposed because of red tide.

[click on photo to enlarge map]

From Wikipedia:

Red tide is an estuarine or marine algal bloom and is caused by a species of dinoflagellates, often present in sufficient numbers (thousands or millions of cells per milliliter) to turn the water red or brown.

The red tide toxins can induce neurological damage and death in marine mammals which feed on affected filter feeder. These include whales, seals, and otters. Red tide can also increase fish mortality; they are also accumulated in the digestive tracts of filter feeders.

This bioaccumulation of toxins causes bivalves – like oysters and clams – collected in areas affected by algal blooms to be potentially dangerous for human consumption.

So what are going to eat? Green vegetables (lots of it) and meat (no choice).

We don’t eat exotic meat either: like the snake’s, monitor lizard’s. Not even carabao or dog meat. My family’s palate is not that adventurous and we aren’t much of meat eaters.

We’ve always been seafood lovers and this province has various kinds of bivalves (I don’t even know their names but I eat them) and fishes.

But then even the bounties from the sea aren’t always safe to eat. In the mean time, we are on anything-seafood-hiatus.

[Photo Credit: Global Pinoy]