Don't drink the local water, or the local Coke.

It's pretty much a travelling mantra; don't drink the local water, it's full of nasties that will play havoc with you guts and leave you stranded in some dog-forsaken public toilet one fine afternoon with fluid leaving you from every orifice it can find. And as someone who has suffered despite taking these precautions, its the kind of advice I'd heartily endorse. Sometimes you're told that if you can't get bottled water, try getting some softdrinks instead. Since the water used to make the drink is processed during bottling, all the bugs are gone and it might help replace the salt and sugar you lost sweating your way around the tropics.

Except today I picked up one of the English-language national papers to find an article regarding the pesticide content of softdrinks. All 52 tested samples of 11 different products from a number of different states contained at least two or three different pesticides. Some contained 25 times the safe limit according to Indian standards (which may or may not be the most stringent in the world, but I know which way I'd bet). Some contained banned pesticides. You know it's got to be a pretty nasty poison when even the insects your trying to kill aren't allowed to drink it. But it's in my Coke.

Now I'm sure there are traces of these things in Australian softdrinks. I like to think that they are way below safe limits and that in a country as well regulated as Australia, food quality is better, but I accept that modern agriculture being what it is, some of this stuff will end up in my food and thus in my stomach.

But given the prevalence and quantity of pesticides outlined in the article, the obvious question is, how the hell did it get into the drinks? If it's in the water, how safe is the bottled water I'm drinking? So now I have the joy of considering dehydration, diarrhea or Diazinon.