If you’re local you know where to go but your immune system is also used to the baseline contaminants that exist. To eat street food as a traveler you risk a few days-weeks of stomach upset but after you get through that you’re usually ok for while.
India isn’t special for it, same concerns exist in any country that doesn’t have reliable clean water or well enforced food safety standards. If the FDA, EPA, and USDA aren’t fixed soon this will soon be true in the USA as well.
My brother once had an ice cream from a street vendor in Cambodia. Many locals were buying there so he figured he’d be okay. He ended up in the hospital for 2 weeks.
In rural Burma, I had one single sip of green tea offered by a monk friend. I was tired and wanted to be a gracious guest so I happily accepted … only later did I remember that the water for green tea is not brought to a boil. That single sip of tea cost me 9 days of shitting-my-guts-out misery in a third-world country without access to western medicine. I normally travel with Imodium (Loperamide) but it was illegal in Vietnam, because it is technically an opioid.
If you’re local you know where to go but your immune system is also used to the baseline contaminants that exist. To eat street food as a traveler you risk a few days-weeks of stomach upset but after you get through that you’re usually ok for while.
India isn’t special for it, same concerns exist in any country that doesn’t have reliable clean water or well enforced food safety standards. If the FDA, EPA, and USDA aren’t fixed soon this will soon be true in the USA as well.
My brother once had an ice cream from a street vendor in Cambodia. Many locals were buying there so he figured he’d be okay. He ended up in the hospital for 2 weeks.
In rural Burma, I had one single sip of green tea offered by a monk friend. I was tired and wanted to be a gracious guest so I happily accepted … only later did I remember that the water for green tea is not brought to a boil. That single sip of tea cost me 9 days of shitting-my-guts-out misery in a third-world country without access to western medicine. I normally travel with Imodium (Loperamide) but it was illegal in Vietnam, because it is technically an opioid.