Food Poisoned Again

[travelmann]

Yes, yes, street food with flies crawling over it and no running water to clean cutlery is much more sterile than a hot pizza fresh from the oven in an air-con place with a dishwashing machine.

HA ha yes best to understand where food poisoning starts first rather than guessing its xyz can be a million things, here are some http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Food-poisoning/Pages/Causes.aspx

[surayu]

The buffet where you cook stuff at your table gets me every time.

I skip them since i have witnessed how a nice friend of mine dealt with them, basically i had some left over on some of my plates, which i mixed up with it any sort of "table rubbish" (used tissues, toothsticks, etc..), i would never have guessed in a million years that at the end of our dinner, she taked all that stuff and put it back the food inside the trays, yukkkkk! was too late to act and i didn't want to ruin the end of the evening, also the "waitresses" were watching this as something complitely normal, so, surely it was just my mind needing to adapt to the local uses....get ready for it

[KeyserSoze01]

I have eaten street food all over the world and have never gotten food poisoning, knock wood... The worst case of food poisoning I have ever had was in Thailand at a farang owned restaurant... I was ill for 4 days and had to be admitted to the hospital...

[Timthai]

Yes, yes, street food with flies crawling over it and no running water to clean cutlery is much more sterile than a hot pizza fresh from the oven in an air-con place with a dishwashing machine.

The Manila pizza place I eat in didnt have air-con and probably didnt have a dishwashing machine. It was pretty classy though, at the time. The free doctor I saw (who, by the way, prescribed well-done toast and bananas, which worked incredibly well) said that nearly all the problems he saw stemmed from half-cooked food that was left lying around to be finished off later: like pizza toppings and BBQ buffets.

To be more precise about my diet here: I rarely eat meat at all and would never eat any sort of meat skewer no matter where it was from. I do eat plate-fulls of spicy seafood salads and noodles both from street vendors and cheap restaurants and none of them has ever made me ill. Probably because they dont hang around part-cooked for hours on end. Also seafood pad thai, seafood-balls and similar dishes, and lots of fried fish but not the sort that has a brown "batter" on it.

YMMV. I am not a doctor or a lawyer.

The street vendors don't have access to toilets with toilet paper, or clean towels and soap to wash after pooping. So the poop gets in the food. Unless it is cooked very well you get sick from the Thai vendors poop. The doctor in Manila would have known this also if he requested you provide him a stool sample. If the doctor does not get a stool sample he is only guessing what you have anyway.

Thailand is a good 100 years away from having any adequate standards of sanitation.

Can someone please help me with the appropriate Thai phrase for asking a street vendor for a stool sample? ...oh, you mean a sample of your stool.

I suspect some people have more sensitive systems than others... I've eaten some pretty dodgy things in some pretty dodgy places, and never had a problem. (touch wood... hey, I thought only Thai's were superstitious?)

[mark45y]

Yes, yes, street food with flies crawling over it and no running water to clean cutlery is much more sterile than a hot pizza fresh from the oven in an air-con place with a dishwashing machine.

The Manila pizza place I eat in didnt have air-con and probably didnt have a dishwashing machine. It was pretty classy though, at the time. The free doctor I saw (who, by the way, prescribed well-done toast and bananas, which worked incredibly well) said that nearly all the problems he saw stemmed from half-cooked food that was left lying around to be finished off later: like pizza toppings and BBQ buffets.

To be more precise about my diet here: I rarely eat meat at all and would never eat any sort of meat skewer no matter where it was from. I do eat plate-fulls of spicy seafood salads and noodles both from street vendors and cheap restaurants and none of them has ever made me ill. Probably because they dont hang around part-cooked for hours on end. Also seafood pad thai, seafood-balls and similar dishes, and lots of fried fish but not the sort that has a brown "batter" on it.

YMMV. I am not a doctor or a lawyer.

The street vendors don't have access to toilets with toilet paper, or clean towels and soap to wash after pooping. So the poop gets in the food. Unless it is cooked very well you get sick from the Thai vendors poop. The doctor in Manila would have known this also if he requested you provide him a stool sample. If the doctor does not get a stool sample he is only guessing what you have anyway.

Thailand is a good 100 years away from having any adequate standards of sanitation.

Can someone please help me with the appropriate Thai phrase for asking a street vendor for a stool sample? ...oh, you mean a sample of your stool.

I suspect some people have more sensitive systems than others... I've eaten some pretty dodgy things in some pretty dodgy places, and never had a problem. (touch wood... hey, I thought only Thai's were superstitious?)

Yak kee cup.

[mike_rad]

Many people I know are vegetarian when travelling in Asia.

I spent 4 months in India last year and had no stomach problems whatsoever, thanks to a vegetarian diet. Which is no great sacrifice really, as Indian veggie food can be incredibly tasty.

[Panhandler007]

Like street food, but really you ought to be careful.

Went on street food binge once and fell ill for a week! Just avoid food from vendors that have set up shop beside busy roads. You have all that pollution and particles settling on the food then you eat it, then...

[NancyL]

Hubby gets food poisoning every 3 - 4 months, always a fairly mild case that puts him out of commission for just a day. Usually it's because he's eating food different from his normal diet. Like the time he went on a weekend road trip with a couple of Thai friends who insisted on "showing" him the best noodle shop in every city they entered. He often eats noodles once a day, but never 3 - 4 times. Guess what happened after a couple days of the noodle diet? Oh, and like a previous poster, he's gotten sick on the orange juice from one of those "fresh squeezed" stands.

I've never gotten ill in Thailand, but my favorite street food is khao pat gai, cooked while I wait. My worst case of food illness was in the U.S. when I attended a conference where about 25% of the attendees became ill after returning home. The local health dept. said they tracked it down to one individual who had become ill with "the flu" at the conference, but didn't go home after vomiting in the toilet. Instead, she continued to mingle with the vendors and speakers. She was probably one of many who shook my hand that day!

I was so badly affected that I tore the lining of my stomach with the initial vomiting and had internal bleeding for several days before my husband convinced me to go to the hospital because I shouldn't be vomiting when I hadn't eaten for 3 days. Unfortunately, our home toilet was a dark designer color, so I didn't realize how serious it was until I vomited in the emergency room's white toilet, waiting (and waiting) to be admitted. They said I'd lost three units of blood and were amazed I wasn't unconscious! Fortunately, the solution was fairly easy -- they cauterized the stomach lining tear in the emergency room. But, I was hospitalized for blood transfusions and "observation". They pumped my stomach twice -- once in the emergency room and then a few days later to make sure I was ready to go home. That procedure sure is unpleasant!

Yes, food poisoning or something you think may be food poisioning can be serious. I learned you should seek medical attention if it continues for more than a day or so.

[sunholidaysun1]

Be wary of Rice,salads, BREAD, all big in bacterias when it comes to food poisoning .

[mstribling]

Hubby gets food poisoning every 3 - 4 months, always a fairly mild case that puts him out of commission for just a day. Usually it's because he's eating food different from his normal diet. Like the time he went on a weekend road trip with a couple of Thai friends who insisted on "showing" him the best noodle shop in every city they entered. He often eats noodles once a day, but never 3 - 4 times. Guess what happened after a couple days of the noodle diet? Oh, and like a previous poster, he's gotten sick on the orange juice from one of those "fresh squeezed" stands.

I've never gotten ill in Thailand, but my favorite street food is khao pat gai, cooked while I wait. My worst case of food illness was in the U.S. when I attended a conference where about 25% of the attendees became ill after returning home. The local health dept. said they tracked it down to one individual who had become ill with "the flu" at the conference, but didn't go home after vomiting in the toilet. Instead, she continued to mingle with the vendors and speakers. She was probably one of many who shook my hand that day!

I was so badly affected that I tore the lining of my stomach with the initial vomiting and had internal bleeding for several days before my husband convinced me to go to the hospital because I shouldn't be vomiting when I hadn't eaten for 3 days. Unfortunately, our home toilet was a dark designer color, so I didn't realize how serious it was until I vomited in the emergency room's white toilet, waiting (and waiting) to be admitted. They said I'd lost three units of blood and were amazed I wasn't unconscious! Fortunately, the solution was fairly easy -- they cauterized the stomach lining tear in the emergency room. But, I was hospitalized for blood transfusions and "observation". They pumped my stomach twice -- once in the emergency room and then a few days later to make sure I was ready to go home. That procedure sure is unpleasant!

Yes, food poisoning or something you think may be food poisioning can be serious. I learned you should seek medical attention if it continues for more than a day or so.

You didn't have food poisoning but you did have an awful experience. Glad things went ok.

[pauljones]

The street food is good...it's just those filthy plates and utensils I avoid.

[surayu]

The street food is good...it's just those filthy plates and utensils I avoid.

Yes i agree, some of the street's food can compete

with the food served in the best hotels (for taste).....but how do you manage to

achieve the second part? do you get hand feeded by the vendor directly or by

just telling her to throw it on the floor?

[mark45y]

The street food is good...it's just those filthy plates and utensils I avoid.

Yes i agree, some of the street's food can compete

with the food served in the best hotels (for taste).....but how do you manage to

achieve the second part? do you get hand feeded by the vendor directly or by

just telling her to throw it on the floor?

I think he means you ask the vendor to put it in a plastic bag and take it home to eat.

[grumpyoldman]

The street food is good...it's just those filthy plates and utensils I avoid.

Yes i agree, some of the street's food can compete

with the food served in the best hotels (for taste).....but how do you manage to

achieve the second part? do you get hand feeded by the vendor directly or by

just telling her to throw it on the floor?

I think he means you ask the vendor to put it in a plastic bag and take it home to eat.

I hope we're not back to the stool sample matter.........

[CobraSnakeNecktie]

the river crabs in som tom... 3 for 3.. Never again.