Healthy strategies for vacation time--Consider water

        Consider water quality at your destination.  We take clean, safe-to-drink water for granted.  Any time we want a drink of water, we can turn on the tap and drink safely.  Public water systems in America have quality standards they must meet.  Not so for many parts of the world.  So when we plan our vacations, we consider water quality at our destination.  This year’s trip we traveled to St Thomas and the resort we stayed at had a water desalinization plant (cleaned, filtered, and salt removed from the Caribbean sea water). While we still drank mostly bottled water, we felt good knowing the water at the resort was safe.  When we went into town, Charlotte Amalie, we drank bottled drinks.

    Water quality affects the foods you can eat also.  Have you heard of people getting sick from iced drinks (ice made from dirty water) and fresh vegetables (washed in dirty water) such as salads while on vacation?  If the kitchen staff use dirty, germy water to wash the fruits and vegetables, you face a risk of getting sick.  We took comfort in knowing our St Thomas resort had a desalinization plant which cleaned, filtered and removed salt from the sea water.