Hi everyone,
I've been wondering about this for a while and was hoping to get people's experiences and insights.
I know a lot of people in the 811 community travel/live in South East Asia a lot in order to take advantage of the incredible fruit available over there. I was lucky enough to visit Cambodia and Vietnam in early 2010 but unfortunately I wasn't a fruit nerd then and didn't appreciate the abundance! Actually I had a really awful time with food because I was travelling with my boyfriend at the time and his family, and his mother (a general practitioner) said we shouldn't eat anything raw as it was probably contaminated from the dirty water. She also had us take all kinds of ridiculous shots (typhoid, hepatitis etc) and take malaria tablets every day which made me feel sick. Most of the time I just ate rice and stir fried vegies and tofu. It was basically a salt fest. Euuew. Despite all the precautions however, we all got food poisoning on at least one occasion. Mine actually lasted about 4 days, which was fun.
Now I'm hearing about and seeing pictures of all these people travelling to these places and gorging themselves on fresh produce, when I was told that this was totally unsafe. As well as this I'm not hearing any reports of food poisoning or tropical diseases happening to these people who I know wouldn't have been vaccinated.
Do you all think taking food safety precautions in Asia is necessary? If I go there again, should I do anything differently to how I eat at home (i.e. not take any precautions)? I'm thinking that my first experience of Asia was, for a large part, ruined by conventional medicine. No way I'll go there with a doctor again. Haha.
Tags: Asia, Diseases, Fruit, Malaria, Medicine, Tropical, Vaccination, Vegetables
Permalink Reply by Durianwriter on I went to India in August. All the westerners I met there told me I would have to eat cooked food or I would get sick.
Irony was, I ate raw food the whole time, and they were the ones who got sick.
My theory is that SAD eaters both have a weaker immune system, more susceptible to new pathogens AND that their food is more likely to have gone rotten/result in food poisoning. SAD eaters eat meats that have sat out for God knows how long, dairy products that go foul quick in tropical climates, and an assortment of oils and other fats that are rancid from both cooking and exposure.
When I was in India, I ate only foods I could peel. So I knew my food was always perfectly fresh, and no one had touched it except me!
Permalink Reply by matea on Lindsay... what about greens? I heard they are notorious because they are washed with dirty water. Did you do without them?
Permalink Reply by DURIANRIDER on
These 2 videos took me 7 trips to Asia to work out. You learn it all today for free lol!
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