Food Safety in Southeast Asia

Food safety is one of the biggest challenges backpackers face when wandering through Southeast Asia. Not knowing what you’re eating can be a fun experience, but it can also be risky.

Backpackers in Southeast Asia often find themselves off the beaten path faced with unusual eats. For most of these travelers, it’s not if they get sick, it’s when. Here’s how travelers and backpackers facing food in Southeast Asia can eat safely and avoid getting sick:

Don’t Drink the Water in Southeast Asia

When Americans discuss traveling to Mexico, it never fails that someone utters this phrase. It seems everyone who’s been to Mexico has a horror story of Montezuma’s Revenge ruining their trip.

By all accounts, the water quality in Mexico is certainly questionable, but water in Southeast Asia is no better. It doesn’t matter where you are in Southeast Asia, don’t drink the water. Even in luxury hotels, the water cannot be trusted.

When it comes to showers or brushing your teeth, a few drops of water isn’t likely to result in serious illness. The possibility exists, and limiting water intake from the shower or bathroom sink is wise.

Most hotels and hostels have clean water available. Bring a water bottle and refill before leaving each day. Bottled water is perfectly safe, but try to limit buying disposable bottles of water when possible. The trash in Southeast Asia is out of hand, and plastic bottles already litter the streets, beaches and countryside.

Street Food in Southeast Asia: Is it Safe?

Southeast Asia is well known for its street food, but is it safe to eat? The short answer is yes. The real answer is yes and no.

Food that sits on the side of a street collecting dust and fumes is one thing. When that street is in humid Southeast Asia, where food safety standards are lax, at best, aging street treats become a dangerous delicacy. The warm, humid weather is a breeding ground for bacteria, and the countless flies buzzing around do a thorough job of further spreading that bacteria.

Eating street food is a risk. What appears to be a harmless snack may be your gastrointestinal undoing. How do you safely eat street food in Southeast Asia?

There are a few simple rules to follow to minimize the chances of getting food poisoning:

First, the easiest way to ensure that street food in Southeast Asia is safe to eat is to choose hot food. Not warm food, hot – really, really hot – food. The chances of any harmful bacteria or virus surviving in a piping hot bowl of mystery mush is highly unlikely. Hot is the safest way to eat in Southeast Asia.

Second, fried foods are usually safe. Fried food may not be a healthy streetside snack, but anything cooked in several-hundred-degree oil is safer to eat and lasts longer. Fried exteriors also act as a barrier of sorts to bacteria, making it harder (but not impossible) for bacteria to colonize from within.

The third rule of street food safety in Southeast Asia is to find busy spots. If a food stall is busy, that means the food is far more likely to be fresh. And freshly-cooked food is always safer to eat than something that has been sitting and breeding bacteria for hours. Another benefit of finding busy street food stalls means finding something delicious. If locals are willing to wait in a line on the street, it’s probably good.

Smoothies & Cocktails

A smoothie with locally-grown tropical fruits is heaven in a glass. Southeast Asia has an abundance of fresh, local fruits. Unfortunately, what appears to be fresh may not always be safe to eat.

A bartender in Phnom Penh gave me some great advice: Exercise caution before drinking smoothies in Southeast Asia.

A lot of the fruit in Southeast Asia is exported. There is still plenty left for local consumption, but spoiled fruit is money lost. Local vendors, especially streetside smoothie carts, are known to treat fruit with preservatives to maintain pretty appearances and prevent spoilage. According to this bartender, make sure the fruit in your smoothie has thick skin (bananas, mangoes, pineapples, etc.) and make sure it is freshly-sliced.

The biggest risk of smoothies in Southeast Asia comes back to water. Smoothies usually contain blended ice. Ice is frozen water. If you are unable to verify that the ice is clean, commercially-delivered ice, that glass of tropical refreshment is a risk. The same goes for ice in cocktails, sodas or juice.

Safely Eating Veggies in Southeast Asia

Vegetables are the safe, healthy food of choice. In Southeast Asia, healthy backpackers and travelers are often keen on taking advantage of the freshness of fruits and veggies.

There is one big problem with safely eating vegetables in Southeast Asia. Vegetables are typically washed before serving. If the next step is cooking, then there is no need to worry. However, raw veggies, especially leafy greens, are usually washed shortly before serving. Rarely are these vegetables washed with clean water.

Salads may the healthy alternative at home, but a plate of leaves and raw vegetables is not the cleanest or safest thing to eat in Southeast Asia. Cooked vegetables are the safe choice for eating healthy.

Cheese in Southeast Asia

A lot of the cheese in Southeast Asia is unpasteurized. There is nothing wrong with unpasteurized cheese, but it is a food that many backpackers and travelers are unknowingly not used to.

In the United States, there are laws regulating cheese, and most cheese in the country is pasteurized. Even though Europe enjoys freedom of cheese choice, a majority of cheese consumed in Europe is pasteurized.

Suddenly filling an inexperienced belly with unpasteurized cheese is a disaster waiting to happen. Stomachs not used to the raw milk cheese will be in for a rough time and shouldn’t stray far from a toilet. I learned this lesson the hard way. As a cheese-lover and someone who regularly eats strange foods, I didn’t think twice about eating cheese in Southeast Asia. It was a rough couple of weeks in Vietnam before realizing the source of my gut troubles.

Fortunately, cheese is not a common feature in the cuisine of Southeast Asia and poses little risk to food safety. That being said, be aware of the side effects before ordering a giant, cheesy pizza.

Food Safety in Southeast Asia: Prevention

Always consult a physician before long-term travel or a backpacking trip of any length to remote destinations. Doctors can help travelers understand any health risks associated with certain locales.

Vaccines are paramount to travel and food safety. Before traveling to Southeast Asia, there are a few vaccines most physicians recommend. Properly vaccinated travelers will avoid a lot of misery when it comes to food safety when wandering in Southeast Asia. Diseases such as hepatitis A or typhoid fever are preventable with vaccines. Each is commonly transmitted via contaminated food or unclean human hands.

Medications to manage symptoms are equally important as vaccines. Even the most careful travelers in Southeast Asia will lose the occasional battle with food safety. Unless you live off of mini-mart junk food, sometimes there is no way to tell when dastardly microorganisms in your food will strike.

Pharmacies in Southeast Asia are a shot in the dark. On one hand, I’ve seen healthy travelers walk into a pharmacy with no prescription and walk out with powerful opioids. On the other hand, I have personally visited a pharmacy with a stomach issue and was given ibuprofen. There is no guarantee of positive results in Southeast Asian pharmacies, and when it comes to food safety, well-supplied travelers can avoid uncertainty.

The best method to deal with a relentless case of food poisoning is good preparation. When visiting the doctor before departure, ask for antibiotics to treat foodborne illness for your travels.

For more on medications and other odds and ends to pack, check out Pack Light, Pack Right: The Little Things.

Most travelers are aware of food safety in Southeast Asia to some extent, and most backpackers have some antidiarrheal meds somewhere in their bag. What most travelers forget to bring is laxatives. The lack of food safety in Southeast Asia – also, eating entirely new cuisine – can do more to your gut than open the gates. It can shut them down, too. Constipation can be miserable, especially away from the comfort of your own home. In addition to the antibiotics and antidiarrheal medicine, pack some laxatives to help you keep moving.

Carrying basic medications – and, of course, constantly using hand sanitizer and washing hands with antibacterial soap – are the best ways to prepare for food safety in Southeast Asia. Most backpackers and long-term travelers in Southeast Asia fall victim to the delicious, exotic food at some point. Don’t let bad planning ruin the trip. Or your underwear.

Food Safety in Southeast Asia: Treatment

Over 200,000 people die each year from food poisoning. When food poisoning strikes, travelers in Southeast Asia need to be proactive. Here’s what you should do:

Consult your doctor. I am not a medical professional. My advice is from personal experiences and secondhand from my physician. Talk to your doctor about what to do in the event of food poisoning in Southeast Asia.

Stay hydrated. The most important thing is to stay hydrated. Dehydration from a stomach virus can hinder travel for days or weeks without proper treatment.

Clean water is a necessity. Gatorade or an equivalent is ideal, but good luck finding that in Southeast Asia. Loperamide is a common antidiarrheal medication that eases symptoms. It helps with hydration, but it is not an antiviral or antibiotic. In other words, it won’t kill any pathogens causing the illness.

Rest. Staying in bed all day when traveling is torture for someone with an additionally serious case of wanderlust. When you’re sick, exerting energy exploring will only prolong the illness and fatigue. Be patient and get well before moving around.

Identify the cause. If possible, try to determine what food (or drink) may have caused the illness. If symptoms linger, this can help doctors determine the best treatment.

Find a doctor if the problems persist or worsen. At the first sign of illness, locate the nearest hospital or doctor. In the event that you need serious medical intervention, an IV or just a trusted course of medication refills, it is better to know where help is before it’s too late.

---

Curious Foodies Beware

If you’re like me and you love to eat weird, random foods – if you cannot pass up any opportunity to try something new and strange – accept the fact that food safety in Southeast Asia is as sloppy as that plate of brains. You are going to get sick.

I knew before the plane ever landed in Vietnam that, at some point, my curious stomach would get me into trouble. And it did. More than once.

I’m never going to pass up an opportunity to try something new for fear of gastrointestinal retribution. It’s not in my nature, and I recommend that all travelers, especially backpackers in Southeast Asia, push the culinary limits of their palates. The benefits of discovering a new favorite food far outweigh the occasional sickness.

All backpackers and travelers need to consider ways to eat safely when traveling. Wanderlusting foodies, however, need to take extra precautions for food safety in Southeast Asia. Food and drink is an open window to another culture, but following curious cravings means experiencing different types of new cultures – the bacterial kind. Thorough planning and preparation is the first step of safe and smart travel eating.