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]
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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.