Thread: Food precautions while travelling in the ME?

My husband and I are taking a trip to the Mediterranean and Near East. We're planning to play it partly by ear, but we do expect to hit Turkey and Jordan at least, as well as Greece.

I've been to Turkey before. On that trip I was careful not to drink tap water (I was staying with a Turkish friend, and her family was as adamant as the travel doctor I consulted that local water was to be avoided) but otherwise ate fresh local foods. I'm vegetarian, however, so at least I didn't have to worry about meat issues.

This time around, I've read on travel information sites (e.g. the CDC) that travellers to Turkey, Jordan, and adjacent regions should avoid not only water but also all uncooked fruits or vegetables, which were much of what I subsisted on the last time I was in the area!

I'd love to get the input of travelling Bhuzzers, since I know many forum members make regular trips to Turkey and other parts of the Middle East and Mediterranean. Although I don't eat meat, my husband does, so recommendations regarding that food group would also be appreciated (we know that we should check that meat is fully cooked).

Hey Ainsley,
I don't know where this 'avoid uncooked vegetables' is coming from but that sounds a bit extreme. I mean, usually I avoid salads in restaurants at first, but if you buy vegetables and then wash and prepare them at home you should be more than safe. I think it's about whether the knives and surfaces were clean or not, and not so much about the veggies themselves.
Anything cooked and served high temperature should be safe regardless of where you got it, if it's boiling hot the bugs will die.
Depending on how long you stay, you might wanna introduce a little bit of tap water into your system after a while..but if u only stay a week or two, maybe you can avoid it completely. Usually the day will come when you drink it by accident and if you're completely not used to the bacteria, it may not be pretty.
I've dealt with "Middle Eastern stomach" on and off for years. Hydration is key, if you do get stomach issues get rehydration salts from any pharmacy, it's super cheap, and mix it with your water. You can drink plain water all day long but it won't stay in your body long enough to compensate the water you're losing. It took me too long and lots of unnecessary suffering to understand the symptoms of dehydration, the salts will kick it to the curb just like that. Have a great trip!!

We were told the same thing about fruits and veggies when I went to southern Africa years ago. None of us had a problem, and I was there for a month with no issues. Like the previous poster said, it's more a concern about the food prep utensils being used to cut the fruit and just being careful to wash the fruit before eating it. Most of my food was prepared for me, so I didn't have any control over that, but was ultimately just fine. One trick I used in Africa... if there was food that I was expected to eat but knew wouldn't be good for my stomach, I would take a small sip of peptol bismol before eating. It helps coat the stomach, protecting you from getting stomach upset. I know a number of other regular travelers who do this too. I was able to eat semi-rancid, heavily spriced and preserved meat in a town with no refrigerators this way without getting any stomach upset or illness (I got into a lot of situations where refusing to eat would have been offensive to our hosts, so pepto saved my ass a lot lol). Near the end of my trip, I had to start taking antibiotics to prevent malaria. I started drinking the local water at this point, and was probably fine because of the low dose antibiotics, so maybe see if your doc can give you a prescription for an antibiotic just in case you get sick. Come to think of it, I was drinking the local water the whole time in the form of hot tea, so maybe I eased myself into it with not-quite-boiling water.

Hope you have fun on your trip!

I have travelled all over the Middle East, North Africa and India and it's quite a while since I last had any trouble.
The last time I had some short but violent stomach problems were from icecream. In countries where there are regular power outages, icecream can get too warm and then bacteria will spread.
Another time when I was sick for 2 weeks, I was more or less forced to eat some lamb meat that I totally didn't like the taste of. Ever since then I made it my rule not to eat stuff that I don't like.
Prooof: Everybody would tell you that eating a cream cake in Mumbai would be suicide. Well, it went down just fine with me :-)

I drink water from the bottle simply because most of the time the tap water doesn't taste good. I know, I am spoiled, here in Switzerland tap water is about the best thing to drink. And cheap :-)

Have a wonderful trip!

MEISSOUN

There's an article on my web site about this: Health Secrets of a Bellydancing Road Warrior: Part 4, Maintaining a Healthy Gut

I consulted a medical doctor (my mother-in-law) for advice when I was writing it.

Stuff like lettuce can be okay if you use a vinegar-based or lemon-based salad dressing.

I would think washing would be key. After all, even in this country people have contracted e-coli and such from fruits and veggies. (My mom says it's because some people who harvest don't want to take time away from their work so they'll go to the bathroom and not wash before returning to picking, but I'm not sure how true that is. She's never given me any sources to back it up...) Another issue might be that some countries don't have such strong laws on which pesticides & etc. can be used? Or may use manure as fertilizer?

I'd think, too, that thick-skinned stuff, esp. if you remove the skin/peel (bananas, oranges, melon), would be safer than things with thinner skins or skins you would normally eat (apples. lettuce, tomatoes).

Well, if you can't drink the tap water, then it seems like washing the food with tap water is not going to solve all the problems. When I am in Mexico, we buy a product (it might be iodine) to make fresh raw fruits and veggies safe to eat. You just put a few drops in water and soak the produce in that for 15 minutes. Then it's safe to eat. Maybe there is a powdered form of this that you could travel with, or a product available in the countries where you are traveling.

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