Question for the well traveled: Where did the food make you sickest?
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Anonymous
I'm sorry, but you list an insane list of precautions (to Americans, anyway) and then say that to do otherwise is "slumming it." Nope, it's not that black and white. We stayed in 5 star places and never took risks and someone in our group got so sick they had to go to a nursing home (to be nursed, but less serious than a hospital) for two weeks. We ate in people's homes as well, and our hosts lamented that they really had to stay on top of their staff because they would go to their unhygienic ways if they were not closely supervised. This is the same in posh restaurants and 5-star hotel restaurants. It just takes one lazy or untrained person, and the results are much more virulent because of the overall hygiene and risks. It's a gamble. I hope you keep winning it. |
Anonymous
| Club Med in Mexico. UGH. |
Anonymous
NP here. How is drinking bottled water, eating at established restaurants and saying in high end hotels "insane" in a developing country with water quality issues? This is very basic advice to any traveler-and points that I've followed whether in Africa, Mexico, or Asia. |
Anonymous
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India, at a 5-star hotel. Prawn (shrimp) curry. This was in Delhi, which is not near a body of water, and I guess the shrimp was trucked in and not kept at the proper temp some time during the journey.
Of course, the hotel we were staying in was some designer hotel with a glass "door" to the bathroom, so my gf (now DW) got to hear my time on the toilet for hours on end. Couldn't eat real food for 2 days. I've traveled to about 50 countries and will sometimes get mild and manageable diarrhea, but it's mostly due to eating different foods than usual, not food handling issues. |
Anonymous
| India, a colleague (despite staying in nice places, taking all precautions, and having been there many times before and having family in India) got so ill she had to be sent to a hospital |
Anonymous
| China. I got camppylobacter and something else that gave me a fever for 14 days. |
Anonymous
| China PP here. I also got violently, violently ill eating a shellfish platter in France--in august. Some kind of weird sea snails. I was throwing up for several days, and so weak and sick that I could barely crawl to the door for the the SOS medecin (house call doctor). But the worst part was that I developed an autoimmune form of ulcerative colitis from it that lasted a decade. |
Anonymous
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I'm one of the PPs who posted about Israel. It's so odd to me that others have had the same experience. I was way more concerned eating in 95% of the places I've been.
And like another PP, I took a chance and ate literally everything I could find off the street in Taiwan. I was convinced I would be sick but zero issues (but I did think it was super clean there; you can tell by the bathrooms). I read that in terms of street food it's pretty safe. Not sure I'd test that theory in other parts of Asia, though. |
Anonymous
| Alaskan cruise on Norwegian Cruise Line. Norovirus. I've never been so sick in all my life. |
Anonymous
Club Med Cancun. |
Anonymous
Read the whole post. Naturally people are going to do that, especially in India. Including brushing teeth with bottled water, boiling water for tea and re-sanitizing all the teacups and spoons in the hotel room, not letting water enter your mouth or eyes in a shower. These *are* insane things to do as an American, but naturally we do them for travel. The PP positing that as long as you do this you will be safe. I posit that even with these "insane" precautions, it just takes one lazy or untrained person. And everyone there laments about the uneducated people who just don't regard our safety as vigilantly as we do. This thread is proof. People take precautions and still get sick. |
Anonymous
| Anyone get sick in Brazil? Traveling to São Paulo on business this summer, and will have to eat local food (much of which seems unappetizing since I don't eat meat). |
Anonymous
My sister spent 3 years in the Peace Corps in Morocco. Each time she left the country to travel and then went back, she got sick again. Her boyfriend visited for a few months and was fine ... until he had ice in his drink. Oops. (He wasn't staying so he didn't try to adapt to the various bugs.) I was super careful when I visited her and was fine. I was also fine in Beijing when I visited years ago, although I ate street food and in a couple hole in the wall places. And I have never (knock on wood!) had food poisoning from anywhere, despite eating out a ton, including lots of raw fish (years in Japan). One time I went out with friends in Boston to a sushi place and we all ate the same food and everyone got sick but me. From reading this thread, I am obviously very lucky! |
Anonymous
| China, 15 years ago. Horrible food poisoning from bad chicken in what was actually a nice Western restaurant in Beijing. I had a raging fever for a day, then diarrhea for the next month. I lost 10 lbs. and have actually never gained that weight back (and it was not weight I needed to lose). They ran tests for parasites when I got back and nothing showed up. |
Anonymous
No, and I've been plenty of times and definitely eaten more than my fair share of street food and beach food. If you'll be staying in a nice hotel in São Paulo, you'll most likely be fine. If you are going with people familiar with the area, they should be able to help you know which restaurants are okay. Even for a non-meat eater, there are plenty of delicious salads (this is fine at good restaurants), cooked veggies, fresh fruit, cheeses, and rice and beans dishes that should keep you happy. Despite never getting ill from Brazil, the Miami International Airport--which is the hub we usually pass through to get there--is a cesspool and I would make sure you're up to date on all vaccines before setting foot in that place. |