Since up to 50% of all long-distance travelers suffer from diarrhea, you should stick to the old English rule when it comes to food: Boil it, cook it, peel it, or forget it. If you got plans of buying gifts during your travel, you can visit medium.com/@playtime/best-toys-gifts-for-9-year-old-girls-dd6f8dcf3766.

The following foods and drinks should be avoided

• Oysters and other raw seafood
• Raw fish; only eat fish you have caught yourself (also fried) if you have sufficient knowledge of the species, as they can be poisonous
• Raw meat
• Salads and raw vegetables
• Fruit salad
• Ice – both ice cream and ice cubes
• Cold buffets
• Food kept warm for longer
• Tap water
• Unpasteurized milk
• Frozen products, as the cold chain is often interrupted

As for drinking water and also to brush your teeth take on the best-bottled mineral water or boiled water. Freshly made tea and coffee are usually safe beverages, as are beer and wine. However, the stomach often reacts sensitively to drinks that are too cold – so do not expect your heated body to drink ice cold drinks, especially on hot days.

Diarrhea and other gastrointestinal disorders

Most traveler’s diarrhea occurs in the first few days of a stay abroad when the intestine has not yet got used to the “foreign” bacteria and viruses. The patient is usually healthy again after a few days. More serious intestinal infections are much less common – they are often associated with abdominal cramps, vomiting, or a fever. The stools may be slimy or bloody. Possible causes of such diarrheal diseases are bacteria or parasites.

Food poisoning manifests itself within a few hours after eating spoiled food with vomiting and diarrhea. Typhoid too and paratyphoid, poliomyelitis, hepatitis A and hepatitis E, and various parasitic diseases such as intestinal worms are among the infections that can be contracted when traveling when carelessly eating and drinking.

Prevention

Caution when eating and drinking is the best prevention against diarrhea, as there is neither vaccination nor useful pill prophylaxis against traveler’s diarrhea, amoebas, and other intestinal parasites. No absolutely safe preventive protective effect has ever been proven for any of the numerous over-the-counter drugs on offer. Certain antibiotics reduce the susceptibility, but because of possible side effects as prophylaxis, or only when using lotions with very high sun protection.