I would say yes-you have no idea of how clean the preparation was. Plus, being handled by human hands (without gloves) sets you up for all kinds of contamination. the rules for eating in 3rd World countries seem to be:
-eat only cooked foods (hot) at a reasonable clean restaurant.
-no raw vegetables, fish or meats
-no ice in drinks (it can be made from contaminated water)
-drink only bottles water, soda, beer, etc., that you have opened yourself.
-wash your hands with soap and water-always
When i see videos of people at Macchu Picchu eating street food, i wonder how many come home with hepatitis, or some other disease. i know it can be safe, but given the odds, is it best to be careful?
This is true here in the USA-many street food vendors have cleanliness issues.
Anecdotal only, but most cases of “dodgy tummy” in such countries I’ve encountered have been from people eating “western style” food in restaurants. That food tends to hang around whereas street food is usually freshly cooked.
I gotta wonder, why 3rd world? Is eating street food in New York City likely to be safer/more sanitary/less handled? (except for the unsafe water thing).
That said, I eat it all the time when I’m there. Had good luck so far.
I rarely eat street food in Bangkok anymore. That phase is long gone. I want air con, and preferably Western, as Thai food is what we eat at home, and Western is special.
It’s true that street food gets a lot of contaminants in a polluted city like Bangkok. But I still have a vivid memory of spotting a street-stall cook duck under the Skytrain stairs at 1am to take a humongous piss on the sidewalk. No place to wash one’s hands on the sidewalk, I’ll clue ya.
Ice is almost always okay here. Plentiful and cheap. if it’s in little cubes, then it came from a factory. Chipped ice is to be avoided, as that’s usually been chipped off with a rusty icepick and kept in unsanitary conditions, but I can’t recall the last time I saw that.
Yes, since street vendors in New York have to be licensed, adhere to health codes, and are subject to inspection. Even if regulations exist in developing countries, they may not be enforced.
This said, I eat street food regularly here in Panama and (judiciously) in other developing countries and have never had a problem. (I have had problems with restaurant or hotel food, though.) However, Panama is exceptional in that water in most of the country is safe to drink.
I have been to Egypt several times, and have had the runs about half of those trips. I have never eaten street food, and follow all the usual advice. So there are no guarantees.
Street vendors in the U.S. are licensed and regulated by local health departments. Yes, there can be lapses, but standards are strict here and in third world there are probably no standards at all.
Another point is that the inevitable bacteria you encounter as a tourist are not the ones you’ve become acclimated to at home. So what may be harmless for a long-time resident may have explosive results on a visitor, even if sanitation is relatively good… and why it can happen in New York too.
But yes, opportunities and exhortations to wash hands are fewer in some third world countries. However, consider that observant Muslims wash as part of their prayer ritual when they can, 5 times a day. It was my observation in Egypt that the people, amazingly unlike me, did NOT smell despite a full day in 100F weather. (The animals however, reeked!)
The other point as mentioned, is raw vegetables and fruits, and uncooked anything, has been handled by a large number of people without the safety guarantee of washing or cooking. It only takes one to contaminate…
We ate at traditional restaurants, 5-stars, had shawarma and mixed pasta from street vendors and even had the guide prepare us a meal with salad from local vendors out in the desert. My wife had the runs once, I never did.
It’s a good idea to be careful until you’re acclimated. I traveled to Mexico with a colleague who dismissed any problem with street food. She then missed most of our activities during a week of massive diarrhea and vomiting.
This is an excellent point in a generalized sense. Even travelers within their home country can get tummy troubles due to differences like that.
… which is where the local water quality is also a factor. Doesn’t do much good if the “washing” confers more germs than it rinses away.
I lived in an East African country for three years and not uncommonly ate street food when I was traveling. (In my village or when I was staying elsewhere with a kitchen I cooked). I did get sick on occasion (again always while traveling- the water in my village was safe to drink), but I definitely wasn’t sick all the time.
Of course, Panama (and most of Latin America) is a whole different world away from most of Africa development-wise. The fact that Latin American and African countries are both considered ‘developing world’ probably conceals a lot more than it reveals.
A friend of mine who travels to Mexico fairly often sticks to soup from street vendors. He figure it has been cooking at a temperature high enough to kill most problem bugs.
I would think freshly charred hunks of meat would be a pretty safe bet, as long as the raw meat smells good and has been kept chilled. Any street vendor trying to sell spoiled food is going to be noticed.
Chunk of beef, lamb or chicken + fire = yum!
Another thing I have noticed-in many 3rd World countries, there seems to be a lack of basic knowledge about safe food handling-like avoiding cross contamination. And in hot countries, there are always lots of flies and insects. Flies spread germs, and I never saw nets over food out on street stands. I agree-NYC vendors can have the same issues-but I’d wager that their food is safer (during the winter months).
Here in the Yucatan, I eat street food often. Usually there are two helpers. One prepares the food, tacos or tortas, and another takes the money. If there is only one, he puts his hand in a plastic bag to make the money exchange.
Since most of the customers are locals, a lot of effort is made to avoid illness. People getting sick causes bad press. And sick people don’t make return visits.
The standard rules will more or less keep you safe- eat very hot, freshly prepared food and have some awareness of water and you will probably be fine most of the time.
But you will get sick some of the time. If it’s your honeymoon, you may want to be pretty vigilant. If you live somewhere, though, it’s probably worth a few cases of the runs. Of course, children and those with compromised immune systems should be more careful.
One good thing about street food is that you can see it prepared in front of you. Some of the most notoriously pestilent restaurants are actually those serving tourists. Since they don’t rely on repeat business, they can really cut those corners.
There’s more than one control for some of the the threats. Hep A vaccine is recommended by the CDC before travel to Peru.
Street food, where you can see the quality of the ingredients and it is well cooked is probably better than restaurants and hotels, where you can’t see what is going on.
Holidaying in Egypt at Sharma el Sheik, the world renowned scuba diving resort, food poisoning hit just about everyone. On a dive boat, the first day, we were asked to put you hand up if you were diving that day. First day: everyone. Second day: one dropped out. Third day: three were not going to be diving. By the fourth day we were down to 50% and so it continued. One by one, people needed to be close to a toilet. The prospect of getting out of a rubber diving suit in a hurry was not a pleasant thought.
The hotels were all quite new, all the big names, lots of stars. But, talking to dive instructors, they talked about waves of illness that swept the place and they came up with various theories. Public health professionals know well, that illness is down to basic hygiene and things like the flies finding their way from waste disposal sites and into kitchens.
Street food is another matter, it can be safer. Sometimes the production line from live animal to tasty dish on your plate can be quite short, eliminating many opportunities for infection. Be observant, see how they handle the food.
A couple of years ago, I went trekking in Nepal. I had a Nepalese friend and he showed me how to stay healthy. Just as in diving, trekking up mountains is no fun if you are having stomach problems. One secret was to avoid meat, this was a country with a very unreliable electricity grid, which is not good for refrigeration. I lived off eggs, lentils, rice, pasta and soup. Boring diet, but it worked.
I met some Canadians who had some pills that were supposed to be very effective at warding off food poisoning. My Nepalese friend said they were very brave to put their trust in such things. He would never eat street food in the sort of placed they visited.
I noticed a lot of that: ‘with this fancy water filter and these meds, I can deal with anything’. Hubris before nemesis, I think.
Illness can seriously ruin your holiday, it is best to avoid the dangers rather than resort to dubious counter measures.
If you want a gastronomic experience, go to France.
I’ve eaten on the street in Peru without any problems. Ditto Columbia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, most of SE Asia, even in India and Nepal. Fruit, juice, hot food and cold, even seafood!
The trick is to spend a little time to see who’s doing the steadiest business, and eat from that stall. The locals know who’s got good habits and who doesn’t. Plus a busy stall has lots of turn over, nothing sitting around for too long.
If I never ate street food, I’d have missed out on some awesome food.
I’ve eaten street food in quite a few countries. Plus plenty of restaurant food.
I typically have a (usually mild) gastro event every couple of weeks irrespective of what I actually eat - not much different to home really - especially when my son buys Dominos Pizza for dinner 
With street food, the trick is to see what the locals like eating and watch it cooked.
Foreigners in China are advised to stay away from street food unless a Chinese friend or co-worker can vouch for it. I stick with restaurant food and regularly get sick anyway.
I eat street food wherever I go, but I am careful about anything that is not thoroughly cooked, especially anything that may have been rinsed with the local water. I’ve managed to avoid any bugs so far. The last major trip I took was to India, and almost every Indian-American told me not to eat street food, but after about one day, the temptation was just too strong. I stuck to all the grilled and deep fried foods, and I was fine. My wife did get a 24-hour stomach bug, though. No problems in Mexico, South Africa, Uzbekistan, etc. but, like I said, I avoided anything that wasn’t thoroughly cooked, at least in terms of street food. For sit-down restaurants, I took my chances with uncooked foods.