food alert: 2 cafes in Paris

Food poisoning can happen anywhere or you caught a bug by touching something. It’s never pleasant and definitely puts a damper on travel plans. Sorry it happened to you.

I am very sorry you became ill, not once, but twice. My daughter contracted e coli from alfalfa sprouts at an Iowa restaurant. Turned out to be a larger outbreak that included several Midwest states. Sometimes the problem is more related to a supplier.

I am so sorry this happened to you. Food poisoning is the worst !! And food poisoning while traveling is the worst tomes ten !! Thanks for the warnings on theateries.

I'm not sure food poisoning shows up that quickly after eating. I'm sure you had something, with the same awful effects. But to name the businesses if there's doubt.....?
Good luck in the future.

Pat, for some of us who don’t have stomachs of steel, food poisoning (or a serious GI reaction to slightly ‘off’ food) can indeed show up that quickly. I speak from experience on more then 1 occasion.

Hi Pat,

I have had food poisoning three separate times and all in Austin. This happened over a period of years and at three different restaurants.

I will not name the places but two were from fast food restaurants and one was from an organic "healthy" place.

In all three cases, I felt perfectly fine. I ate and within an hour, I began to feel sick and within two hours, I was violently ill for the next several hours.

Once you have had food poisoning the first time, you recognize the symptoms for the next time and there is nothing that you can do You just have to let it run its very unpleasant course.

Food poisoning can happen anywhere anytime. The first time that I had it, none of the people who ate with me got sick. It was just me.

Hi mitchelh

Hope that you and your partner are feeling better.

I have had food poisoning three times and it is very unpleasant to say the least.

I hope that you reported the situation to the restaurants and or any other agencies that might have interest.

But I do not know if it is a good idea to publicly name the restaurants. It might not be their fault. They need to know this happened to customers and find out what was the culprit but it might have been nothing that they did. It might have been out of their control.

I appreciate your naming the restaurants. I did the same for a place in Amsterdam where I got food poisoning in January.

I don't want anyone else to go through what i went through, being violently sick on vacation is absolutely awful (not that it's much fun at home either, but at least then you are in your own space and not then missing out on activities the following day that you have spent months planning and $$$$$) . I just consider it a kindness to Forum readers to tell them to steer clear. People can obviously make their own decisions about whether to follow my advice, as with any advice offered on the Forum.

There are so many restaurants in these cities, and therefore it is so easy to go somewhere else if you know what is better avoided. I don't really care who is at fault - the restaurant, their supplier, whatever. If I can avoid spending any vacation time being violently ill for hours, then subsequently weak, I am going to do it.

** Or being too weak/sick to perform any planned onward travel. The day after my food poisoning, I had my train back to Paris. I wasn't certain I was going to be able to make that trip and had to consider whether to stay another night in Amsterdam, how I was going to cancel / exchange my train ticket for another day (or simply have to buy a whole new one at walk-up rate, and let me tell you the Thalys is expensive ), pay another night's hotel (if the hotel even had availability), take an additional and unplanned day off of work due to my later return, etc.

And yes food poisoning absolutely does show up that quickly. Why would it not ? The toxins get into your system and start their evil work !!! And your body works to protect you and eliminate them.

There are many organisms that can cause food poisoning. Some do indeed cause symptoms within 2 hours while others take 24 to 48 hours to produce symptoms. Gastrointestinal infections do not always come from food. You can get sick from touching a contaminated surface and pass it on to a person close to you, all the while blaming it on food poisoning.
So, two people eating the same thing in a restaurant does not always mean you got sick from the food. It could have been from that door knob!

FYI, Diane is a nurse. I appreciate the further information on the potential causes of gastrointestinal problems.

If you were sick within an hour over two consecutive days, you might have caught some sort of non-food borne stomach bug of the kind that causes gastro-enteritis. It is difficult to pinpoint the source...
Still, it's never a fun experience and especially not when away from home!

To me when a person becomes ill two days in a row, it might indicate that they were not completely well from the previous day and their gut was not ready for food.

That said, I am so sorry for the OP. No one wants to be ill away from home especially not on vacation.

Two food items to stay clear of are salads and chicken. Both are the most causes of food poisoning. Poor washing of salad ingredients and salmonella in chicken from poor refrigeration. The obvious next reason is poor hand washing by employees. There is a reason there is a sign in restrooms that say employees MUST wash hands.

And yes, food poisoning comes on quicker than a stomach flu. When you have had both, you know the difference. Too bad about your two experiences.

My dish was chicken — bingo !

I vote with Kim on naming the restaurants. It's up to each person to decide if they find information believable or not. I went to Amsterdam a few months after Kim and completely appreciated her sharing the name of the restaurant. It was one I might have gone to as it was near my hotel (which was also her hotel, lol.....I always take her advice!!).

@Mitchellh - I am sorry you and your partner got ill. That is just awful. I hope you had medication with you! I'm glad it did not spoil your trip entirely as well.

Years ago, I was attending. An event in New Orleans, we ordered deli sandwiches delivered to our venue
three of us got violently ill, but we each ordered different kinds of sandwiches, so I always assumed a dirty knife or bad mayonnaise. And yes, I was sick enough I thought I was not going to be able to get on my 2pm plane the next day and figured I might still be in that bed when they came in to clean the room for next guest.

Last year , 30 miles from home, I picked up Noro virus, which is definitely something you can acquire by touching a door knob, that old cruise ship virus. Remember when that was the only virus we thought could ruin a trip?

The old ‘24 hour stomach flu’ is now thought to be usually food related and not a norovirus. Norovirus impacted my Budapest stay some years ago (so upsetting!), and kept me from most food in Salzburg and most of Vienna as often it is a bug that lasts days. I hope to go back to Budapest one day for what I missed. Fish/seafood is another notorious one that has gotten me when travelling.

I was a medical technologist and worked in a microbiology lab. Diane is correct that different causes of food poisoning have different incubation times. I can personally attest to that having had the sad experiences of staph toxin food poisoning (symptoms can start as fast as an hour after exposure) and salmonella food poisoning (my symptoms started 36 hours after eating what I suspect caused it). I have also had norovirus.

Pam, i got food poisoning from that popular café on rue Cler, Café du Marché. I spent the last 3 days of my vacation on the bathroom floor.

I’m with Kim and Pam, i appreciate naming the café/restaurant. I know it can happen anywhere but still helpful info to me.

mitchellh, Very sorry you got sick. It’s so much more unpleasant on vacation.

Within an hour of eating to feel like you've been poisoned, I think that's too fast.
But anything is possible. I worked in an Italian restaurant in Paris, and there was a lot of unsanitary conditions in the kitchen there

According to the Center of Disease Control (CDC) food poisoning can occur within 30 minutes. https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/symptoms.html

@Susan, I think at least one other person on the forum has gotten food poisoning from there as well. I don't like their food all that much, they generally have few vegan choices and it's pretty busy so I generally eat elsewhere. I'm sorry you got sick there!

Pam, yes, i remember another poster recently saying they got food poisoning at Café du Marché too. “Our” favorite place is nearby so that’s my #1 choice now… : )

Katie, thank you for your link.

"“Our” favorite place is nearby so that’s my #1 choice now… : )"

Too true! I'm not a huge lover of truffles but their truffle pasta is delicious.

I thought of something else too, that may impact getting or not getting a food-borne illness. I lost my sense of smell in May - tested negative for Covid a number of times over 10 days but other upper respiratory illnesses can make you loose your smeller, lol. I have diminished sense of taste for some things so that would impact my being able to smell or taste something that was off. I'm sure there are many folks since the pandemic who may be in the same position.

That makes a lot of sense Pam, i am sure you’re right.

I’d never had truffles before, but their truffle pasta is amazing. Darcy and Doug took me there my first time and now it’s my favorite place. 😋

Ugh. Nothing pleasant about a stomach bug! Diane, my father was a health inspector and pretty much echoed what you've said about being able to pick up a nasty from more than just food. He was also sort of obsessive about safe handling of raw chicken, and generally avoided salad bars.

Pam, you said that you'd hoped the OP had medication with them? Other than trying to stay hydrated, is there anything that really works for mitigating the yucky effects of food poisoning? Honestly, I wonder what people do if they are, say, on an RS tour, have to move to the next location, and are confined to a bus for a good chunk of a day?

I also wonder if a big chunk of a tour group have ever gotten sick from eating the same thing at a group dinner?

@Kathy - what I was thinking was having both Imodium and PeptoBismol on hand to help stem diarrhea and/or stomach upset. It also occurred to me that if I had food poisoning at home I'd use a sports drink for electrolyte replacement. I don't usually travel with electrolyte tabs but that might be a useful addition to my OTC meds.

I will also add that I have never had food poisoning so have not had to use any remedy for supportive therapy.

BRAT Food--bananas, rice, apple sauce, dry toast. Also weak tea.

Braty--Bananas, Rice, Apples, Toast, Yogurt ;)

My daughter got extremely ill with E. Coli at college in a little town in Iowa. The 2nd time she was taken to the ED, they had a hard time starting an IV, she was so dehydrated. When she went home, she was given rehydration tablets and told to drink little bits of water every 20 minutes. Then to work up to pedialyte and then a braty diet. Then, work slowly back into a regular diet. She was told to not use pepto bismol or lomitile, etc., because they wanted the bug out of her system faster.

The culprit was alfalfa sprouts on a sandwich. She was the beginning of an outbreak in the midwest from a single supplier. Not at all the fault of the restaurant she ate at.

...what I was thinking was having both Imodium and PeptoBismol on hand
to help stem diarrhea and/or stomach upset.

Yep, I travel with Imodium too but never thought of using it for food poisoning, Pam. I figured it wouldn't work for that particular bug. LOL, hope I don't have the opportunity to find out anytime soon! 😬

@Kathy - Oh yes...me too!

In looking online at "Dr Google", lol, there are different views on "getting it out of your system" vs possibly getting dehydrated from diarrhea so probably best to check with one's healthcare provider to get their opinion of whether to take meds to stem the tide or not.

If you did NOT go to an MD and get tested then accusing a business of "poisonings" is irresponsible IMHO. And the odds of it happening twice on one trip... and you got sick immediately both times are just astronomical since often food poisoning takes a day or more to show up.

See Diane (a nurse) and Katie’s posts above re: how fast food poisoning can present.

I would also vote against immodium, that ahem "retaining " the offending stuff and letting it ferment longer in your system sounds like a really bad idea. Traveling with a source of electrolyte replacement sounds smart.

For any of the trained scientific types who are participating in this conversation:
I've heard the theory that in like a three gallon bowl of potato salad initially there might be just 2 or 3 "hot spots" so that explains why only a couple of people might get sick at a party. Now, if the potato salad has a longer time to ferment and is stirred up a couple of times, the bacteria impacts more of the batch. Of course, different people would have different tolerances and symptoms . Does that make sense?

Kathy… I worked hand-in- hand with Environmental Health for years and worked countless reported cases of food poisoning. Some resulted in hospitalizations and restaurant shut downs. Sometimes we found the origin and sometimes we did not. We always knew the organism involved but didn’t always find the violation in the restaurant. Sometimes it was caused by a sick employee and not how the food was prepared. When two or more from different households became ill and ate at the same restaurant, it met the definition of an outbreak.

Doric8… plausible.

Imodium and Lomotil should not be used with some infections. Talk with your PCP before traveling to see what he or she suggests. It all depends a lot on symptoms, dehydration, etc.

If one has a serious GI issue whether it is food poisoning or a "bug" of some sort, it is probably a really bad idea to go back to a normal diet within 24 hours. The 2nd bout could have been more related to the GI system not being ready for food than food poisoning.