I second Bonafont water for drinking. You can get it delivered right to your home for 27 pesos (apx. $2.25) for apx. 5 gallons. This is the same price as buying at Oxxo, grocery store, etc. You should tip the delivery person as appropriate but it saves you lugging bottles to the store and back.
Bonafont is owned by the Danone group - one of the largest companies of bottled water in the world.
We use the bottled water for drinking as well as anything that enters our mouth (washing fruit, veggies, cooking, etc). We do rinse our toothbrush with tap water though. Seems like a minimal risk since you are spitting out the little bit of water with the toothpaste.
I would not trust those places that refill the same water bottle that you provide. Who knows if they are actually filtering properly or changing their filters on schedule. In addition, how are you cleaning your refillable water bottle if you keep getting it refilled? Bonafont takes care of this for you.
I would also not trust some refrigerator pitcher or faucet mounted water filter. Likely those will not remove any possible bacterial and contaminants. In general those are secondary filters that require potable, safe drinking water as an input.
As we all know the origination of most of the water in Tijuana is the Colorado river. So why would it be any different than the water in San Diego? It is my understanding that the water purification that is being done by CESPT in Tijuana is not as thorough. In general Mexicans don't drink the tap water because they know that they shouldn't. I believe that CESPT using some type of rapid filtering which does not remove the level of bacteria and contaminants that are required by the United States public water authorities. In addition, likely the distribution (pipes) are not as reliable.
Oh, on the topic of eggs. Have you noticed that most everwhere in TJ they sell eggs that are not refrigerated! When is the last time you went into Trader Joes, Ralphs, Vons, etc and bought eggs that were not refrigerated? Think about it.
Ab out the eggs...You might want to do web research about the difference in refrigerated eggs (usually the U.S.) vs. nonrefrigerated. And I assume you do know most of the U.S. eggs come from FACTORY FARMS (another topic you might read about).
If the natural covering on an egg has not been removed (which happens in the U.S.) there is NO NEED TO REFRIGERATE the eggs as there is a protective coating on the egg. That is all explained in hundreds of websites about the difference in eggs. So I would any day choose the Mexican eggs over the U.S. as they probably come from much cleaner environments than the factory farms in the U.S.
Same with meat; most Americans are unaware that many countries restrict purchases of meat from the U.S. due to the high levels of hormones and additives present; you can also find that info on the web. Again I would take the Mexican meats any day over the overpriced and over-additive U.S. meat.
You might be surprised that the rest of the world operates on a different standard than the U.S.; that is the great advantage of traveling all over the world and being one of the 30% of Americans who own a passport.
