Drinking Water in Mexico
The short story is that everyone drinks bottled water, the longer story is why.
This started out as a comment on a post about food and markets, but it’s long enough and could be helpful to others so I decided to put it here as well.
My friend Drew asked what we do about water here in San Miguel. The short answer is that we use local water for dishes, washing, etc and rely on a bottled water service for drinking water. The bottles are exchanged twice a week so there’s no waste at least, though drinking/eating things out of plastic is not my favorite thing.
Water is definitely more complex and difficult than finding good food on the street.
First, pro tip for developing world travelers: put tap water in a clear plastic bottle, leave exposed to UV light for 18-24 hours. Water will be bacteria free. Good to know in some situations. (you’ll probably get some nice BPA from the bottle though, but pick your poison).
I recently took a short trip to to Denver and on the way back I happened to sit next to a water management PhD student who was on her way to San Miguel to work with local samples. Her project involved removing chemicals from water with bone char filtration systems. According to her, and some research I did later, the big problem here is not bacterial. If your a tourist you may experience some unpleasantness from bacteria you’re not used to, but with some notable exceptions, your body tends to adjust to the local bacteria, given a few months, e.g. if you live here.
The problem here is chemical — especially arsenic and something else that escapes my memory right now. Prior to finding out about the arsenic I was using the local water in situations where it would boil anyway — soup, stocks, etc. But now I use the filtered water for that too since you can’t boil out arsenic.
As for washing, here, and, as I recall, in SE Asia, everyone uses a colloidal silver solution. Put it in the water at whatever ratio, let veggies soak for 20 minutes and you’re done. So even if that water has bacteria in it, the colloidal silver will kill it, along with anything on the fruit (I also wash the fruit in tap water before soaking to get the dirt and such off). We have had zero issues doing this. That said, there are a couple vendors in the market who routinely insist I try some fruit that I assume is unwashed, and I consider it rude to say no. I’m still here.