Do you need to go to the grocery?
I took this photo of the market in Ocosingo late last month. The market opens around 4 am. Farmers sell their fresh vegetables, fruits, and other produce in the market and along the streets leading there.
Some members have asked to see pictures, but this picture has a message. You may look at the produce in the photo and wonder how sanitary the conditions can be, but let me offer another perspective.
In the United States, one of our worst health problems is diabetes. From what I can determine (this isn't a scientific study, just a personal observation), diabetes is not nearly as widespread in the southern state of Mexico as it is in the United States. One reason, I believe, for this is the dependence on fresh fruit and grain in the diet. Another reason could be the amount of food eaten and the amount of physical activity. I don't believe, personally, that genetics plays a role here, since many people from Latin American countries develop symptoms of diabetes (particularly elevated fasting blood glucose and A1c levels) after they have been in the US for a while. In one case, an individual was asymptomatic while in Guatemala, but developed the symptoms of diabetes while living in the US for a couple of years. His blood sugar levels decreased when he went back to Guatemala.
Unfortunately, the incidence of hypertension is still consistently a problem in both populations.
These are interesting points of study to me. Anyway, do you need to go to the grocery?
3 Answers
You may look at the produce in the photo and wonder how sanitary the conditions can be, but let me offer another perspective.
I have purchased produce in plenty of these types of markets Dogwood. I may not have used Vodka 
, but I did scrub them, nonetheless.
I do the same for things purchased in the States. Honestly, just because fruits and vegetables are displayed in cases and arranged in neat little rows, does not necessarily make them clean. I regularly buy avocado and jícama which was grown in Mexico. Instead of being placed on the ground, etc. as in this market, it was loaded in crates and put in the back of a dirty truck for who knows how many days. It is then handled by an assortment of people and ultimately picked through by customers with questionable hygiene.
I'm guessing that fresh produce sold in Latin American markets in this way is probably safer.....but that is my extremely unscientific guess as well. 
This might look pretty but.....
you know that this guy was picking through your grapes and strawberries! 
Great picture, Dogwood!. When we go to Peru, we have been told not to eat any thing that is not canned, peeled, boiled, or cooked by some kind of method. We can eat peeled fruits. We will be preparing our own food, so we will be shopping in the local stores. Sometimes we might eat out. And of course, we will be buy our own water.
When I'm in Mexico I LOVE los mercados locales and in general get my food there rather than at the supermercados. Sometimes you can find organic markets as well. The market in the unused train station in Gunajuato, and the old market in Coyuocan where "El insolito" meets Frida Kahlo in Barbara Kingsolver's novel "The Lacuna", are among my favorites. You do have to soak the vegetables in an iodine or bleach solution before consuming them, and of course drink bottled water.
That being said, the state of Guanajuato in central Mexico has one of the highest rate of diabetes in the world.
If only it were true that la gente por allí eat fresh vegetables and not junk food all the time.
The sad reality is that large corporations, including Coca Cola and its subsidiaries, promote and market huge quantities of packaged junk food, and they sell it cheap. You see kids walking around the street with 2 liter bottles of Coke that are almost half as tall as they are! The fact that the water is generally not potable makes this situation worse.
Off topic, but: how did you figure out how to post photos from your computer on the site? Did you upload them first to an online site and then download them to this site?
