Getting sick from something you ate is bad enough at home, but ten times worse when you're traveling. It can happen to you anytime, anywhere, as it did to a boatload of American and Canadian travel writers -- including yours truly -- 40 years ago in Turkey. The government of Turkey invited them to journey around the Turquoise Coast in a small (and old) passenger ship, and at one point had the ship's chefs prepare a beach lunch that included potato salad, leaving it in cellophane wraps under the hot sun for a few hours before our arrival. Within 30 minutes of eating, nearly 200 journalists were vomiting and worse. When we managed to get back on the ship, chaos ensued as more became ill. A NATO helicopter had to come to take away one writer who suffered a heart attack in the middle of the mess (he died en route to the hospital), and a terrible time was had by all. Some of us who had not yet eaten when the first partakers began to be ill ended up as nurses for the majority.
The doctor spouse of a journalist started his own investigation and discovered the cause of it all, in addition to poor sanitary conditions in general, was an uncovered boil on the thumb of one of the ship's chefs, which had infected the salad. Letting it sit under the sun in its little greenhouses of cellophane allowed the bacteria to multiply before we arrived to have lunch. What Turkey had hoped would be a public relations triumph became a disaster, in fact.
If you think eating something bad and being sick from it is a rare event, consider the statistics. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (tel. 800/CDC-INFO or 877/FYI-TRIP; wwwn.cdc.gov/travel) says that 30% to 50% of visitors to high-risk areas will develop traveler's diarrhea over a one- to two-week stay. That means about 50,000 travelers a day. Other authorities point out that within the US, Canada and Europe, the rate is only 5%. The CDC is a marvelous source for any health-related information you might need, geared to specific countries and areas.
You can get sick at home by eating the wrong food, as we all know from experience. Many locals and visitors eat street food in major cities, despite the crude sanitation involved, and keep coming back for more -- though many don't dare tempt fate this way (including me, after one bad experience in London). Many of us try to practice safe food handling at home, though think about how many times you and your family members wash their hands before preparing meals. Or wash hands between handling raw meat and raw vegetables? And so on.
But it's different when you travel. For one thing, you don't want to get sick and have to take time out of having fun on vacation while lying sick in bed or staying close to the bathroom. For another, you may not have the right medication with you. Again, maybe medical assistance is not close by, or if it is, you don't speak the language and the doctor doesn't speak English. Finally, you don't have your support group, which may include support amenities such as your own bed, your own routine, or even your favorite teddy bear.
There are dozens of rules about ensuring safe food when traveling. Many of them can be boiled down (a good verb, that is) to two: 1) Boil it, cook it, peel it or forget it; and 2) if it's fruit, don't eat it unless you can peel it yourself, like a banana. In India, I travel without the inconvenience of Delhi Belly because I live on a diet of tandoori chicken, rice, naan (bread), bananas, beer, bottled water (which I uncap) and yogurt (the latter in the container and from a reputable local firm). When I am in an internationally famous hotel there, I may eat the curry. I avoid buffets almost anywhere, like the plague. When I was a young student in India, I ate everything and sometimes suffered the consequences. Now, as a traveler, I feel I don't have the time to risk getting ill. Cooking, by the way, does not include marinating or partly-cooked, such as ceviche.
Upset stomachs (and other euphemisms that indicate diarrhea) are more likely to happen when you visit countries in the tropics or developing nations with systems of hygiene not so highly developed as in North America above the Rio Grande, Western Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. So you are going to be careful of what you eat and drink. Is there any way to be doubly sure you don't come down with diarrhea? Some authorities advocate taking a dose (2 liquid ounces or two chewable tablets, four times a day) of Pepto Bismol every day as a preventative, the CDC states that may cut your risk from 40% to 14%. When diarrhea strikes, you can take a prescription called Lomotil or over the counter preparations such as Imodium. They slow down the digestive process, making trips to the bathroom less frequent than before taking them.
Restaurants
If you are really concerned enough about eating out to do some research, you can go to government websites and find out what city hygiene departments think of certain restaurants. Go to www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/rii/index.shtml for instance, and learn that New York inspectors examine the city's 20,000 plus places to eat, and give the famous Nobu a passing grade, for example, with some problems about proper washing of kitchen counters. You can find out which cities, counties or states do such inspections and post them by Googling "restaurant inspections." Info on foreign cities is sketchy, London having no central site, but neighborhoods such as Lambeth and Waterloo maintain their own.
Better yet, see if the city has an award like New York's Golden Apple, a sign of excellence in food safety. In July, the Churrascaria Plataforma Brazilian steakhouse notified its customers that they were dining in a place that just won its third consecutive Golden Apple Award. The award started in 2005, and is beginning to be noticed around town, 19 Manhattan spots having received it already. Restaurants qualify by passing a detailed inspection, with no critical violations and completion of food and quality improvement training courses. Churrascaria Plataforma got the award even though its centerpiece is a salad bar that has seafood and sushi on it. Incidentally, the award has also gone to such disparate places as Bubba Gump's Shrimp, a tourist spot in Times Square, and the ritzy San Domenico, which I think is New York's best Italian restaurant, on Central Park South.
Finally, you can research the safety of food and beverages in 1440 cities around the world in the World Climate & Food Safety Chart published by IAMAT, the International Association for Medical Assistance to Travellers, a charity registered in both the USA and Canada, of which I have to point out I am the pro bono vice president. You'll find IAMAT at 1623 Military Road (279), Niagara Falls, NY 14304-1745, tel. 519/836-0102, website www.iamat.org.
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