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About 20 or more years ago, I used to live near Mazatlan. I was there for three years and decided to just bite the bullet and eat as the locals do. I got sick once in that time.
I recently visited Guadalajara. For the most part I drank the local water, had ice with drinks, and ate some raw vegetables (lettuce, tomatoes, that type of thing) and no negative results.
For some reason, I still shunned strawberries though. Not sure why.
The issue, as I understand it, is not the pesticides or anything ON the raw, fresh fruits and vegetables but the content as a result of being grown with contiminated water. Not saying this is true or not but trying to understand if I am going to be able to eat the lettuce and other raw, fresh foods. This, for me, is monumental as I live on salads and am going to Mexico on a timeshare so I will not be frequenting many restaurants but mostly shopping and preparing meals in my condo. Can anyone tell me if I am headed for trouble?
Contaminated water, problematic personal hygene standards by food handlers ... these are two principal reasons for food-borne illnesses. GI problems occur at epidemic proportions in Mexico. They're something many Mexicans deal with daily and often without resolution. Most grocery stores will be selling small bottles, drops from which deposited into water will remove many of the objectional materials when you soak them. And for fruits and vegetables which can be peeled, the peeling removes much of the risk. People who are at greatest risk are those with already compromised immune systems. The bodies of the rest of us handle the expulsion of contaminants pretty well, although there can be a day or two of discomfort.
I think it's funny that people worry that much about eating/drinking in Mexico and yet in the US, which supposedly has very strict and high standards, regularly has recalls after food contamination outbreaks.
The bottom line here is this: You can get sick eating anywhere. You can get sick buying a sealed package of lettuce at Wal-Mart. So in general, when it comes to food in Mexico, or at least street food, eat where the locals do. They've been around, they know what places won't make you sick, let alone the places that actually have good food. Some of the best food I've ever had has been street food, so don't automatically discount it. And just like in the US, if the place looks dirty, don't eat there. If it looks like the employees don't care, don't eat there. If there are no customers, don't eat there. And if you're still in doubt, ask if a particular place has good food or not. Most of the time, you'll get more information than you asked for.
Also, as has been mentioned above, there are natural differences in food region to region, and some people are sensitive to these differences. Some people get sick even if the food is perfectly fine, but this usually passes once your body adjusts. Others, like myself, have never had problems at all. I visit the tianguis in my colonia every week, and if you've ever been to one, you're constantly being handed sliced fruit to eat. It's not been washed and who knows where it's been or come from. It's up to you to eat it or not. I usually do, and so do most people. Never been sick. Even if I did, I probably still would.
I regularly eat a variety of "ethnic" food in the States and never get sick, even when others do. Indian food is a favorite of mine. I though my "iron stomach" would carry over to Mexico, but oh no, it didn't.
Within a few days of arriving, I was in Merida. On my first night there I decided to try gringas from a street vendor. Soon after I had bad diarrhea. I transferred from my hostel to a hotel that I found a good deal on after a few days with mild diarrhea. I was pleased to have a private bathroom and air conditioning, and lazed around the hotel waiting out my diarrhea. That bout lasted about three or four days, if I remember correctly.
A day before leaving Merida, I ate street food once again. I felt the first pangs on the overnight bus to Comalcalco, which turned into a raging stomachache once I was in a car with my friends' family on a road trip to Chiapas. I didn't tell them but used nearly every opportunity I got to go to the bathroom. I think it was more or less gone by the next afternoon.
Finally, a few days later I was in Cardenas and my other friend's family had a dinner of carnes asadas (grilled meat) in my honor. The meal was accompanied by agua de jamaica and horchata, which I enjoyed. The next day I had diarrhea and a cold, and once again lazed around the house while my friend left early for a job fair. I was nursed back to health by the father of the family, as the mother was recovering from an emergency hysterectomy and could not walk upstairs. I was given a dose or two Bactrim or Ectrim and soon recovered full health.
I ate at a taqueria (seating on the sidewalk) and did not become sick from the experience afterwards.
I am not ready to blame poor sanitation quite yet, as there are a number of things I could have done to prevent at least some of my maladies. The first was when I arrived there, I had the nasty habit of throwing my dirty toilet paper in the bowl rather than in the trashcan. I would pick it out myself to provide embarrassment, and even though I washed my hands thoroughly afterwards, it was probably not enough. I also did not usually wash my hands before eating. I've traveled in developing countries before, so I should have remembered this. Finally, less than three months before the trip began I completed about a year of chemotherapy. Although it was a rather benign oral regimen that I was on, it still probably weakened my immune system. But a few years before I had the same problem while traveling through Morocco, although I attribute that to the heat. Luckily, I met a local on the bus to Marrakesh who was traveling to his wealthy French uncle's house who invited me over and let me use his luxurious Western-style bathroom.
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When I met my friend on an internship in Florida, I had to convince him about three or four times that it was safe to drink the tap water in our apartment. (I also had to instruct him to throw his toilet paper in the bowl rather than the trash can - I wonder if he made this mistake once he returned to Mexico?) That's how strong the local aversion to tap water is. I still chat with several people I met in Mexico daily, and I've asked them if they were going to eat something off the street during their lunch break. In response, they often complained of the sanitary / hygenic standards of street food. So it isn't just a "gringo with weak stomach" thing. Locals often are suspicious of, and get sick from, street food too. Upon returning home from Chiapas, my local friend was sick and even vomited, and we only ate at restaurants. Her mother thought it was from the "carnes surtidas" we all had, which she lavished $50 on (granted, there were about 6 of us).
The issue, as I understand it, is not the pesticides or anything ON the raw, fresh fruits and vegetables but the content as a result of being grown with contiminated water. Not saying this is true or not but trying to understand if I am going to be able to eat the lettuce and other raw, fresh foods. This, for me, is monumental as I live on salads and am going to Mexico on a timeshare so I will not be frequenting many restaurants but mostly shopping and preparing meals in my condo. Can anyone tell me if I am headed for trouble?
Most of the fruits and vegetables a tourist would consume are grown on large professional farms just like in the U.S. Driskell's Berries has thousands of acres of various berries where I live in Mexico.
Do like you should do anywhere and wash all produce. It might not be contaminated at the farm but can be contaminated during shipping and handling. It's simple to do, fill the sink with water and add a little bleach. Let the produce sit in the water for a few minutes and it's safe to eat. Why people don't do that in the states is difficult to understand.
The only people who might, and I doubt they are, exposed to produce grown in contaminated water are the people who grew it for their own consumption. That type of produce isn't sold to restaurants, markets and grocery stores.
I finished, this week, two pints of blackberries which had been grown in Mexco. I didn't wash them. And I didn't get sick. I remain convinced that the problems many people have in Mexico which are caused after eating certain food is due to poor hygene and or storage/care - and that growers apply tougher standards when the destination isn't Mexico. Many of the fruits/vegetables you'll buy in the various weekly or colonia-specific markets in Mexico come from small producers, not large corporate farms. Most of the Chicken (not a fruit/veggie, I know) comes from corporate farms, though. When I've lived in Mexico, and when I travel in Mexico now I always sanitized everything I prepare myself, and I'd never eat strawberries because there have always seem to have been problems with those grown in the Irapuato, Guanajuato region. Why? I don't know.
I've been living in Mexico City for several years now. When I moved here, everybody from the states told me not to eat raw veggies, or drink the water. Of course, they got all their information from the media, or other crazy loons that want to make Mexico look as bad as they possibly can.
Well, I didn't listen. Actually, my first night in Mexico I went and had tacos al pastor, alambre, and other small things with raw veggies. Drank the tap water, rinsed my teeth with it.
But I did get sick, once, about 2 months after I was there. Just a common cold I think though, no vomiting or "revenge" symptoms.
I think what most people refer to as the "revenge" is actually just adjusting to a different area of the world. As mentioned in a previous post, there are many different microbes and other small things in different areas of the world that may not be present where you are from. Such as the Miami to Chicago comment above. The air is also different, with different bacteria that you have not built immunities to yet.
But over time, you will build immunities to the bacteria and microbes in the area you are in, and no longer have to worry about anythying. Unless of course there are definite things that are making people sick, which you can find out about by talking to locals.
Moral of this: Dig In, and enjoy everything while you are here as much as you can.
That's pretty common in most developing countries- at least from friends who are either from said countries, have family there, or have lived there for school or work. My friends do the same teaching English in Vietnam and Brazil.
I, personally, will always do it since two of the 18 of us on my 4 month long Mexico semester ended up with intestinal worms. Granted, one didn't present itself until the end of the program (though doctors think she had it for at least 2 months) and the other caught it when he got back to the States- neither had immediate problems. Neither, also, believed in avoiding biting right into a tap rinsed apple from a market or eating any uncooked streetfood that passed their way.
Worm eggs can be smaller than a grain of sand. You can even inhale them. Worms can also invade any part of the human body. They are not just intestinal. Some have a life cycle that uses your lungs to reproduce, you cough them up and swallow and they end up in the digestive tract, so cleaning out the digestive track won't get rid of them. Some can invade your brain and others you eyeballs. Doctors are not adequately trained to diagnose them and most labs in the states are really lousy in spotting anything outside of the very commonest digestive sort.
I'm just saying that people should not take their health for granted. Just because the locals do it does not mean the locals do not have health issues, symptoms which they consider to be normal.
It will not harm you to take precautions.
Sterilizing is using heat, disinfecting is using chemicals.
Of course, they got all their information from the media, or other crazy loons that want to make Mexico look as bad as they possibly can.
Your comments give the impression you don't know much about Mexico, or the behaviors of Mexicans as far as cleaning their food, drinking (or not) the water from the tap, etc. The foreign press rarely if ever discusses these issues in Mexico, unless there's an outbreak of illness believed to have originated in Mexico ... which isn't often. I don't think you should be talking about "loons." Enjoy Mexico!
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