Home > Women & Travel > Travel and Health > Eating out while travelling When in Rome......When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Which in terms of eating means, eat whatever it is the locals are eating. In Rome, one would presumably stuff in the carbohydrate-laden pastas and mozarella covered pizzas and olives and of course, tank up on the vinos that are a meal in themselves! I've actually been caught red-handed eating freshly steamed escargots in a souk in Marrakech. Sounds exotic? The next few days I spent in grave discomfort were anything but..... Believe me no more snails now or ever. Here are a few tips on how to savour the local cuisine (which is the high point of any travel, I feel) and beat the infamous Delhi belly a.k.a. the Runs a.k.a. the dreaded Stomach Infection.

Going for the Greens....Try to avoid all raw and uncooked food. If you have an insatiable craving for a cool salad, then wash your greens thoroughly with bottled water. The same goes for fruits. Here, as far as possible, try to peel the fruit and eat it without its skin. Beware of eating food bought from roadside vendors. Many of them reheat leftover food and the whole process of heating and cooling is not good for the food (or for you, for that matter).

Savouring the Shellfish....Apropos, my nasty incident with the steamed snails, I can vouch from personal experience that shellfish should be avoided as far as possible. Oysters, clams, mussels, snails tend not to be cleaned very well and it's best to cut a wide swathe around it . Steaming barely dents the germs that hide in the crevices of these crustaceans. Follow similar rules for meat. If you're an unredeemable carnivore, then make sure your meat is very well done. Avoid mince meat; you're never sure which carcass that came from. Or, which part of the carcass it arrived from.

Restaurant Rambles....Follow a general common sense rule when it comes to picking places to eat. Make sure the restaurant you go to is crowded. You might have to share your breathing space with several other souls, but you can take comfort in the fact that the restaurant is popular with the locals. And, believe me, locals know best. Also, a busy restaurant means the food is never kept waiting forlornly for long periods of time and then reheated.

Now, I'm Hungry. Help!Need to lose weight- go travel. Stands to figure (pun unintended!) that when you're watching what you eat with an eagle eye, you tend not to eat too much. You sometimes end up skipping meals, overcompensate with bad, unnutritious stuff, lose your appetite after consuming such unhealthy food..... It's a whole vicious cycle where in trying to eat healthy, you end up becoming unhealthy.

Balance is the key...So, what can you do? First of all, eat your meals on time. Second, make sure you get your full quota of proteins, vitamins and minerals. Balance is the key word here. So rev up your vitamin content with fruits you can peel. Satsumas, oranges and bananas are great for your well being. Pile up the proteins with beancurd, soya, tofu, eggs, dal and nuts. Carbohydrates and fibre can be ingested through rice and whole grain bread. Supplement your diet with iron and vitamin pills if you feel you're either not getting enough or at any rate, the right kind of nutrition