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How To Eat Healthy And
Safe Food When Travelling?

It can be challenging to find and eat healthy and safe food when travelling. Following few holiday travel safety tips can easily make all the difference and make or break your holiday.

Eating Safe Food When Travelling

The first priority when travelling is to eat safely, as so called “traveler's tummy” can seriously destroy an otherwise lovely holiday.

Woman preparing food on the Amazon river in Brazil with pig watching

Take all necessary safety measures and use your common sense before putting anything in your mouth.

Don't get obsessed with it though... obsessing over food safety can also destroy an otherwise great holiday.

How to know what is safe food when travelling?

The basic food safety rules are:

The most common source of travelers dietary problems are related to the drinking water. Make sure the water you drink is safe, if not sure buy bottled water (make sure the cap has not been tampered with) or boil the water before drinking it. Don't forget, ice cubes are water as well, so if you are unsure about their quality, ask for drinks without out ice

Water purification tablets should not be necessary except under very special circumstances. In most normal circumstances you will be able to get hold of clean water, but you might have to pay for it

The traveler's mantra is very safe and sound travel advice, it goes something like “Cook it, wash it, peel it or forget it”

Be careful with fruits and vegetables, those that needs peeling are safest, like bananas and oranges. It's not enough if the vegetables have been washed - they have to be washed in safe water

Make sure the food you eat is freshly cooked as food that isn't freshly cooked is vulnerable for airborne contaminants

This is the reason why buffets and cold plates can play havoc with your stomach

You should therefore always eat heated food when hot, that is don't allow it to cool before eating it

If you like your steak normally rare you might want it at least medium well done when travelling

Avoid unpasteurized dairy products, including cheese and yogurt. Always check labels for evidence of pasteurization. Most canned milk is safe

Be careful of anything that has milk products in it, especially if in hot countries as milk products can go bad quickly in tropical heat

Be careful when eating seafood, especially in hot countries as if not properly stored it can go bad quickly. Fish organs and shellfish (like shrimps, clams, mussels and oysters) might be best avoided unless you know for sure how they have been handled before ending up on your plate

Condiments like mayonnaise, ketchup and salad dressings are safest in sealed packages as can go wrong if left to open air and if eating eggs make sure they are not runny

Shelled foods, like nuts, are normally safe food when travelling

The best holiday travel safety tips are though... never forget to wash your hands before eating or touching food. Hand sanitizers can be useful when not able to wash your hands otherwise. You can also use them to wipe the cutlery before using it.

And don't forget... don't become obsessed with food safety. Take necessary safety measure, use your common sense and enjoy eating while travelling.

Top Safe Food When Travelling Tips

Just in case... You should have some over-the-counter anti diarrhea medicine in your first aid kit.

Pepto-Bismol is popular for treating minor digestive system upset while Imodium works well stopping diarrhea.

Healthy Eating While Travelling

Most of us know the feeling... coming back home after great holiday and having a proper home cooked meal. How good it taste, how healthy it makes us feel.

The convenience of fast food is also tempting when travelling, we have better things to do with our time than cooking or waiting for a meal to be cooked from a scratch at a proper restaurant.

Healthy eating while travelling can be challenging for many reasons. We are on a holiday - we want to enjoy ourselves, including enjoying our food and drink... it's therefore easy to overindulge while on holiday.

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It can also be challenging to find food that we are accustomed to and that we know are part of healthy balanced diet.

Cooking ourselves is not always an option and even if it is, we are likely to want to dine out on regular basis... we are on holiday after all. That is fine, dining out is one of the great things about travelling, something we should enjoy.

Holidays are not the right time to follow strict diet. That doesn't mean we cannot still look out for healthy options on the menu and choose our meals with balanced diet in mind.

If you have the opportunity to cook it might be good to do so in between. That way you can make sure you are eating healthily as well as there are few better tips for saving money on food when travelling.

Even though you don't have cooking facility in your room, you might have a fridge which is great for storing healthy snacks... and saves you some money as well. If you don't have a fridge in your accommodation, you can fill the sink with cold water to cool your drinks and keep other food, like yogurt, fresh and safe.

Safe Food When Travelling
Don't Obsess But Be Aware

Following these holiday travel safety tips and healthy eating advice can easily make or break your holiday. It's especially important that you make sure you eat safe food when travelling.

It is easier to catch up on the healthy balanced side of your diet when you get back home but not eating safe food when travelling can affect your health and well being on the long run.