What seafoods are unsafe to eat from waters where red tide occurs?
Only a few marine animals accumulate these toxins. Shellfish, including hard-shell clams, soft-shell clams, oysters, mussels and scallops, are particularly prone to contamination as they feed by filtering microscopic food out of the water. If toxic planktonic organisms are present, they are filtered from the water along with other nontoxic foods. Whelks and moon snails can also accumulate dangerous levels of the toxin during red tide as they feed on contaminated shellfish. During red tide blooms, hard-shell clams, soft-shell clams, oysters, mussels, whelks, and moon snails harvested from areas affected by the blooms are not safe to eat. Since toxins are stored in the digestive tract (stomach) and viscera (intestines) of these animals, scallops are safe to eat as long as only cleaned adductor muscle (the only part generally eaten) is consumed. Lobster meat, crabs, shrimp, and most finfish do not normally accumulate toxin and are safe to eat from affected waters. Lobster tomalley (the gr
