Hey guys! If you're new to our channel,
I'm Jordan I'm Maddie And we're Tangerine Travels. And you are
Tangerineys! Affectionately, we call you that. [Laughter] In our last video, we had said that we might have to leave Ajijic Soon. And right after we made that
video, we got notified we have to get the heck
out of here. We are in, not so much panic mode, but definitely planning mode in
terms of where we are going to live next? Where are we traveling next? We're hoping
for some input from you guys - Where you would like to see some videos? Where you
think it'd be worthwhile for us to travel? But in the meantime, today, we're
going to be talking about something that is so so popularly asked on our channel. So what is this question we keep getting
asked? It's all about food and water in Mexico. Is it safe? Can we drink the water?
Do we eat the food? Do we eat raw food? Do we put ice in our drinks? Do we eat salads at restaurants? How do we wash our food? What's safe. What's not. Do we get sick? How often have we gotten sick? We're gonna be answering all of those questions and more as we're bopping
around at the Lake Chapala area today. Preparing for our trip! So as you
guys are watching this, please keep this in mind. We're not health professionals,
these are just our experiences. We're not out here testing food for ecoli or doing
studies or anything crazy like that. This is just what we've learned over the
course of eight, about eight months of being in Mexico, traveling from city to
city. If you have a different experience or a story that you think would help
others who are considering coming to Mexico, living here, traveling here.
Please share it in the comments. First, and probably the most popular
question, is the water in Mexico safe? How would you answer that? Well, that's a huge
question and it's got to be broken down a little bit, so that's exactly what
we're gonna do. First, is the drinking water in Mexico safe? If you're talking
about the tap water, we've been told time and time again "do not drink it, it is not
safe unless you filter it extensively." which we do with our Berkey. We can, we'll
link to that in the description in case you're curious about the water filter we
use while traveling. How about the water in restaurants? We can go into more
detail on this later in the video but when we first came to Mexico, we thought
you had to order bottled water at a restaurant in order to be safe. In fact,
that's what most people say in Facebook groups and things like that. But we
don't really agree with that, but we're gonna get more into that, and there's
some other variables to factor in. Although we've been told time and time
again never to drink the tap water, and we don't drink the tap water. But what
extent do we use tap water? Well, we use It to shower and we use it to brush our
teeth. People say it's fine to use to brush
your teeth. That doesn't really make sense to me though because it would be
entering your body if you're putting it in your mouth. So if you're here just
visiting for a week or something I absolutely would not use it to brush
your teeth! Because you're going to be introducing new bacteria into your system
and you're probably going to get sick. What about washing dishes? Uh yeah, we
wash dishes with the tap water. And vegetables, cleaning things like that,
that's when we would use the filtered water from the Berkey or filtered
bottled water of some kind. Because you're trying to get the bacteria and
germs off of it, not soak more into the produce. The next thing is, is it okay to
order water at a restaurant? Sometimes they say they only have bottled water.
And in that case, they don't have what they call a garrafón, which is a five
gallon jug of drinking water. Which in the US you might be familiar with as like Sparkletts or Aquafina or something like that. Yeah so if I were just traveling to Mexico for a
week, I would only order bottles of water at a restaurant. Just to be on the safe side.
yeah, cuz, it would be rare, I think, that they would serve you tap water. But if
they did or if they put ice in there that had particles of stuff on it or
something. You just, you don't want to risk ruining
your whole trip by doing that. Yeah, but at most restaurants you can order a glass of
water, and that's going to be filtered water, and you don't have to ask for
filtered water in order for that to happen. Next up, ice, ice, baby. [Laughter] Can you put ice in your drinks in Mexico?
Now we've been living here and we've ordered stuff with ice, I personally
don't think we worry about it at all. Often, you see them carrying in bags of
ice to the restaurant and it is completely clear. You can't see the air
bubbles in the ice so that's a pretty good indication that it's filtered. If
you're only staying here for a short time or just going to Cancun or
something for a trip, maybe avoid ice just to be on the safe side. Although I
feel like it'd be pretty rare to have someone freezing ice from tap water.
It's probably going to be just fine to have drinks in your ice in Mexico. Drinks
in your ice? Ice in your drinks, in your ice. And obviously, if you're making ice
at home, use filtered water not tap water. One that we get asked all the time is
have we gotten sick from eating the food or drinking the water in Mexico? And I
was getting so sick from food in the US, whether that was the pesticides they're
putting it on it, genetically modified foods, or something else completely. Maybe the mercury poisoning I was dealing with? I don't really know but when we came to
Mexico, I was less sick from eating food. I could actually eat food again so, for
me, I think it would be a completely different situation than for most people,
and I do still have existing food allergies like gluten. And sometimes I've
gotten poisoned by gluten things sneaking into my food. But Jordan on the
other hand. As for me, I'm probably more of the typical situation where food
didn't make me sick in the US. I came here, during about the first month, I
got a little stomach bug maybe three different times? And each time it lasted
for between a few hours or a day. Nothing major. Nothing that took me to the doctor.
Nothing that made me too concerned but yeah, if you're coming here
and you're being exposed to new water, new food, new organisms. Bacteria and stuff. It's just, it's natural, there's just foreign bacteria here that the body is not used to when
living somewhere else for a long time. Yeah, so you're coming to a new place,
expect to get a stomach bug here and there. I was just looking at these
mountains and admiring them behind me and this is one thing that we're really
going to miss about the Lake Chapala area. It is absolutely gorgeous,
especially in the rainy season! So now we are here at Sunrise restaurant. it's our first time here. And I actually remember when we were first Traveling through Mexico. We were always
so certain, so careful about the water we were drinking. Sipping it, looking at it,
and ordering bottled water, and things like that. Now we order glasses of water, vasos de agua, without even asking. And this tastes perfectly
filtered, and if you think about it, I mean, restaurants don't want to make all
their customers sick so they'll never return. It almost doesn't even make sense
that they would use tap water, so there's also that. And also, if you have a gut
feeling. If you notice something "hey this restaurant doesn't look very
clean." Then just avoid it. I think common sense has helped us, or kept us from
getting sick more often. One other question that we get asked is do we only drink
bottled things, like bottled beer, bottled water, bottled soda, things like that.
There was a time when we were in Guanajuato and someone was like "oh my
gosh you guys." There's a bug on my hand. "don't drink agua frescas because they use tap water if it's kind
of on the side of the road or something to save money."
And since then, we made a point of looking at these places that sell agua
frescas and they always have those big buckets. Those big garrafón jugs
of water. So when we came here, I didn't know what an agua fresca was, wanna explain? Oh yes, an agua fresca, that's where they use fresh juice, or fresh fruit, fresh
leaves like mint, and fresh seeds like moringa, that's a combination we really
love! Heirbabuena with Moringa and And they add water, sugar, delicious,
refreshing. To keep this vacation thing short, should you get bottled stuff or
can you get a margarita? If you really want to be safe, stick with the bottled
stuff. But am I going to go to Mexico on vacation and not order a margarita? No,
I'm not. There's also people who worry that the
alcohol in Mexico might be tainted because they've seen things on the news
saying that it was high alcohol content, poor quality, makes people sick, and has
killed some people in the past. We don't really know anything about that but
again if you're very concerned about that - take it easy. Maybe have a
margarita and if it really gets you where you want to go then just err on
the side of caution again. So we're going for a little walk here which we like
doing. Kind of helps us clear our head and of course we're just trying to soak
in as much Ajijic and Lake Chapala as we can before leaving. And we were talking
about how the interaction at the restaurant, we didn't even have to think
about anything that was going on in Spanish. And it occurred to us, Wow! When
we first came into Mexico, everything every single word that came out of our
mouth had to be a conscious thought. Like we really had to consider: What am I
trying to say? How do I say that in Spanish? We're like man, we didn't have to,
I didn't have to think about anything! That just happened. That's so cool, when
we first came here anything more complicated than gracias, it required a
conscious effort from us. So we're gonna get right back to telling you about the
food and water in Mexico but we wanted to bring this up because it's super
encouraging, looking at the progress that we've made since being here. After doing
about a year's worth of lessons before coming to Mexico, and it's only been
eight months. And we can pretty much have all the basic conversations and all the
interactions that we need to. That is thanks to continuing our practice with
Rocket Languages. We just want to share this with people because we do get asked
all the time how we're learning Spanish, and oh my gosh it's improving! Which,
thank you guys, it's really encouraging to hear that stuff. If you want to learn
Spanish like us, look in the description. We'll put a link to Rocket
Languages, by far the best way that we recommend. It's going to be the same
price for you whether you purchase it through their website or through
clicking on our link but if you do purchase it through our link, well then
we get a nice chunk of change from that which helps us continue our travels!
And show you guys more places in Mexico, maybe even the world. We're just about to get
back into the video and we decided to cut out of this little middle section
where they have horses and stuff because there's a bunch of bugs. And as I'm
walking through this little cutout in the fence, I feel something on my face
which I thought was a branch. But I look back as Jordan is walking through and
notice it's a gigantic spider web with huge spiders! Like four or five inches big. And I'm like duck duck duck duck duck!
Jordan freaks out because he thought I was talking about a duck! How much damage could a duck do? Maddie's pointing directly behind me
saying duck. Well, no like up. It was above your head. I'm thinking there's a duck coming to attack
me. Before I knew it, there's spider webs all over my face I
see these giant spiders! It's gonna take a while to repress these memories. Anyway, back to the point. Is street food safe to eat?
Is it safe to get food from vendors? I don't think we've had any noticeable
problems with this but if there's any food that I would recommend being extra
careful about, it is street food. Because that's the time when it's probably more
likely that people aren't gonna be washing their hands as thoroughly
because they don't have running water. I think it can be easy to let food fall
below the temperature that it needs to be at safely to prevent bacteria from
growing and things like that. That being said, I don't think we specifically avoid
street food at all, in fact that's some of the most flavorful and delicious food
we've ever found throughout Mexico! That's what we seek out. [Laughter] Yeah. And a lot of times it's cheaper but you still should be aware of the cleanliness and
if you're feeling like it might be a little sketchy just don't eat there
obviously. The few times I've gotten sick I don't know what it was exactly that
made me sick. But the very first time it happened, we were in Ciudad Obregon. This
was probably the worst stomach bug I've gotten, it maybe lasted a day. oh my
gosh I the heebie-jeebies I think there's spiders on me now, sorry.
Okay. It might have lasted a day or something. What I was thinking at that
time "You know what, my diet has changed a whole lot since coming to Mexico." I'm eating tons of beans, lots of corn and tortillas and stuff. Spicy food. Yeah,
I mean we were using a lot of spices before, but definitely like spicy spicy
food! So was it a stomach bug or was it just a change of diet, I don't know.
People often ask "Is the food safe in Mexico in general?" We did a whole video
on this a while back talking about how we think the food is better here than in
the US, and that's why I said earlier that I don't get sick here from food and
I was getting terribly sick in the US. So I have a little bit of limited experience
with coming to Mexico on vacation with my family. Talking about ordering hot
food versus something like a salad - well, In my experience, if you order hot food,
you're less likely to get sick. Every family member of mine who ordered hot
food, whether it be quesadillas, tacos, fajitas, or whatever didn't get sick. But
people who were ordering a salad repeatedly did end up getting sick
during that vacation. So that's something to think about. Whether that's always
true or if that's just my personal experience, I don't know. And the final
question that we get asked a ton is how do we take care of washing our produce?
We just wash it in filtered water but honestly we could do a little bit more.
Yeah, because that's not gonna kill all the bacteria or parasites or anything
else that you need to worry about, so we would recommend getting essential oils
to do this like citrus oils are pretty good. And also there are citrus, or
not citrus washes, produce washes that you can get it a lot of markets. So it's
not something that you have to search too hard to find. But we do recommend
doing that in filtered water no matter what! Thank you guys for watching this
video! If you like what we're doing, please give this video a thumbs up! If
you haven't already subscribe to our Channel, please do. And That is so loud! [Laughter] I promise it won't be this loud when
you GONG THAT BELL, so you get notified when we put out new videos. And we will see you there! Was that Irish? I have no idea what accent came out that but that was supposed to be a southern accent.
