A nightmare experience in the Philippines

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I was in the Philippines recently, with my wife, to visit her old Papa. We took the extended family, 12 people, to what was supposed to be a high end restaurant, costing nearly 1200 pesos (around $30 Australian) each. It was a toxic disaster for me. Plastic everywhere. The meal was served on an outdoor table, in our own pavilion, that had a plastic screen, all around it to stop mosquitoes getting in, l guessed. There was an old plastic tablecloth, fixed to the table, with the menus underneath it, a semi permanent fixture, it seemed. Car, truck, fumes, were high, from nearby roads, and movement, in the carpark. They had also spread thousands of old reused plastic flowers all around for Mother's day, l thought, as it was Mother's day, the next day. But, then the food came out. Plastic old, reused, scratched, plates, plastic serving dishes, old scratched, peeling, too. Plastic knifes, and forks. Plastic drink jugs, and the food stews, soups, steaming hot, were in old aluminium large pots. The aluminium was bad enough, leaching aluminium into foods, from their acidic vinegar heavy dishes, but the plastics, giving off millions of particles of microplastics, and toxic fumes, phthalates, and other chemical compounds, etc, was a disaster. Of course, all of the Filipinos knew no better, they lapped it all up, until full. After all, it was their signature dishes, pinakbet, containing pumpkin, vegetables, dried fish, noodles, plenty of rice, etc. I ate nothing, except when the fruit came out, again on a plastic dish, l risked taking a piece of papaya, an alkaline fruit, not the pineapple, it being moist, and acidic, it would have been far worse. When the bill came to me, it was handed to me in a small plastic black tray, and it was printed on thermal paper, a very dangerous medium to use, especially if you handle it before eating. Full of poisons, your hands absorb, straight into bloodstream, made worse if you ignorantly clean your hands with a hand sanitizer, which increases absorption then, manifoldly more. I paid it, and then l went straight to the toilet, to wash my hands, with soap and water, but as the liquid soap was in an old plastic container, l only used water. To cap off a bad night, at the end of the night, they put the leftovers in plastic bags, to take home. The food had already been in the hot steamy air, for two hours, and with the 2 hour drive home, to me, it was now inedible, but they ate it for their breakfast the next morning, and again, the next day too, even offering me some, which l refused. Scientists tell us that with all the ingested plastics in us, our brains are now close to 1 percent plastic, but in the Philippines, in those sorts of toxic soups, their brains must, unfortunately, contain way more than that. Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com A holiday in the Philippines was a disaster for me.