Les Oysters C'est Damage Le Body.

At the Night It Up event, my mom was going on and on about finding some fresh, live oysters to eat. There only seemed to be one stand that was grilling an array of seafood. It ranged from Scallops to Razor Clams to Oysters, and some other shit.

I was really eager to try a raw oyster for the first time today, but that didn't go as planned.

My dad explained to me that it doesn't sit well with some people's digestive systems. Makes perfect sense, sushi doesn't sit well, spicy doesn't sit well, I get it, peoples have stomach sensitivities.

We watched the chef do his thing with the shells on the grill and my dad deterred my mom from ordering any because she has the biggest intolerence out of all of us.

He went on to explain from observation that the oysters were from polluted waters. That's when my interest piqued. He lead me back to the grill and pointed (not too sanitarily) with his skewer the edge of the oyster that was the colour of soot.

An oyster's diet is as follows:

"Shellfish farming requires no input other than providing a clean environment and limiting predation. Oysters are filter feeders: they obtain all their required nutrients by drawing sea water through their gills and filtering out naturally occurring tiny plants and animals called plankton. Oyster farmers therefore do not need to feed their stock, and rely solely on natural food supplies."
Via: http://www.aquaculture.ca/files/species-oysters.php

With that said, you are eating a carrier for all kinds of diseases and bacteria that fester in the water source that they are cultivated in. This is not some new food revelation. We grow vegetables in cow shit for fucksakes.

This is just another thing to be conscious of to prevent your liver (or is it your spleen...) from swelling and rupturing to the amusement of *insert body gore director name here*

I guess now I'm trying to find where the cleanest Oyters are farmed in Canada, and how I can get some in Toronto.

P.S.

I just remembered an episode of No Reservations in which Anthony Bourdain happily snacked on rice stuffed Oysters that were being sold on a boardwalk in Istanbul I believe the episode was... but the dude was selling them out of a wooden barrell, obviously no ice to maintain edible food temp, and more than likely handling the money and shucking open the oysters for customers. Mmmmmm... all key ingredients to the perfect stomach rumbling, esophogus purging, food poisoning cocktail.