Is the food safe to eat in Sweden?

There’s always a chance that you could get food poisoning when travelling in Sweden but compared with many countries, the risk of it happening is extremely small.

Swedish restaurants and takeaway shops have to meet strict health and safety criteria in order to serve food, and even then they’re subject to regular checks. Getting sick from food shouldn’t really be a concern (especially if you’re planning to stick to restaurants) and you’d be extremely unlucky if it happened to you.

If you want to be extra careful, give buffet-style restaurants, street kiosks and ‘afterwork’ evenings a miss. Swedish seafood is usually so fresh that it’s completely safe to eat, but reports of people getting dodgy bellies after eating bad mussels and oysters are not unheard of, particularly at buffets. For the freshest stuff, the best advice is to go for restaurants that specialise in seafood – Gothenburg has some great options.

Unless you’re given a specific warning about a problem with the local supply, the tap water in Sweden is completely safe to drink.

If you’re unlucky enough to get poorly from food, the most important thing is to keep yourself rehydrated. You’ll find sachets of rehydration powder available at most chemists. Unless you have a long journey ahead of you, avoid anti-diarrhoea drugs – they simply block you up and stop your body from dealing with the problem. For serious health problems, get yourself to a hospital or drop-in clinic.

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