What not to eat in Thailand: 7 tips based on your own mistakes

What not to eat in Thailand: 7 tips based on your own mistakes

Michelle Maria Thai cuisine is a freaky variety of tastes, shapes and aromas: this is what it takes tourists from the northern countries who are hungry for the exotic. For exotic and really ripe fruits and vegetables. Plastic tomatoes, soap-hard avocados and frankly green mangoes from supermarkets are so annoying that we are ready to rush into a real culinary revelry as soon as we step outside the beach cafe. But it is worth losing vigilance – and a hot “hello” from the stomach will not keep you waiting. How to enjoy all the shades of Thai dishes, while maintaining health and well-being? Read tips from “Subtleties”.

1. Do not try everything in the first days

Yesterday your body calmly digested buckwheat with dumplings, and today they stuffed khau phatov, yam vun senov and other catslacquered with shrimp paste and garlic lime sauce… with such a set of reagents, even the strongest stomach can go on strike. And the beginning of the vacation will have to be spent in the line of sight of the restroom. Show restraint and at first combine local delicacies with something more trivial. Thailand has a lot of neutral dishes based on noodles, rice, meat, familiar vegetables. They can be eaten without any sauces. Or ask the cafe for a European menu.

2. Do not lean on spicy

Thais are used to eating spicy. For them, this is a tradition that grew out of necessity – in a hot and humid climate without thermonuclear spices, food quickly deteriorates. But if you constantly test your digestive system with chili peppers, in the end it will not stand up and fail – the whole “chronicle” can escalate. People with gastrointestinal diseases need to be especially careful – acute in large quantities can provoke inflammatory processes. The warning is banal, but relevant.

3. A lot of seafood is a direct path to protein poisoning

No matter how much you want to pick up shrimp, squid, crabs and other octopuses on the market for cheap, you should not fry and eat them right there. Out of habit, you run the risk of getting a powerful food allergy in the form of a rash all over your body, which will last for several days. Or, worse, protein poisoning with nausea, headache, and ammonia taste in the mouth. .ru/sized/f550x700/07/5e/075ebt9jb09s0s44gw8kokogk.jpg” media=”(max-width: 549px)”>

What not to eat in Thailand: 7 tips based on your own mistakes

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4. Icy fruit smoothies on the street – a sore throat with a bonus to poisoning

Water in Thailand can only be drunk bottled. And what kind of water went to the ice to make natural juices and fruit smoothies, what is offered to tourists from street stalls – only the smiling seller knows. Filtered water ice is clear and free of bubbles.

To the danger of poisoning, there is also the risk of catching a cold: an ice drink in the heat of +30 ° C, drunk almost in one gulp, is a direct path to illness.

5. Fried insects – a tourist attraction

Beetles, grubs and scorpions, on sticks or in bulk, are as exotic to most locals as they are to you. Few people really eat this in Thailand, mostly people from the northern regions and Khmers from Cambodia who came to work. You can try them with a strong desire (unless, of course, there is a tendency to allergies), we do not recommend eating them in tangible quantities: the reaction of the body can be unpredictable.

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6. Fish sauce

This is a very popular product not only in Thailand, but throughout Southeast Asia, it is added to many dishes. For example, in the famous catfish salad there. Bottles of light (filtered and thin) sauce are sold everywhere, and many people like it. But there is also a more severe variety “for their own” – unfiltered sauce. Few farangs can withstand its taste and smell. Sauce nam pla is made from fish sprinkled with a huge amount of salt and mixed with glutinous rice. It is… shall we say, fermented in the sun in clay barrels for several months.

7. The main thing is not to go overboard with the exotic

Just because Thais calmly eat rotten-smelling pink eggs, ant larvae, and fresh-blood soup doesn't mean you can do the same without harming your health. Any substances of animal origin without pre-treatment are strictly not recommended to be eaten, otherwise there is a real risk of catching a serious infection. As for products with a specific smell – you can try and tick, but remember the limits of your capabilities.

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