Quantcast
Channel: Living Surrendered » tips
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 4

5 Tips for Eating Real Food While Traveling

0
0

5Tips for Eating Real Food While Traveling | www.livingsurrendered.com

Traveling with food allergies and a special diet can be rough.

We get asked all the time “where and what do you eat?!”. It cracks me up because it’s as dramatic as America’s reaction to Hostess going out of business (fainting and all).

The answer: well, we eat real food.

In the last 6 years, we’ve traveled quite a bit. Since Neil is a diabetic, we have grown quite skilled to planning our days around meal times and packing enough insulin in our carry on bags to last us through any emergency. But, traveling on a gluten-free diet was a whole new ball game. Tack on eating organic whole foods and you’re talking riding the “impossible” fence.

I’m not going to sugar coat it, it’s tough to live in a world where fast food and gluten are your meal options. But, like anything health related it takes work and in the end it’s worth the effort. Am I starting to sounds like an infomercial yet?

Knowing that we had a 660 mile road trip ahead of us for our niece’s baptism in Annapolis, MD we started prepping early. We had 4.5 days of meals and snacks to plan for and one special celebration lunch for the baptism. We are really blessed with family members who not only cater to our needs but don’t complain about having to do so. We are so thankful for that!

We made the trip (by car) there and back without any glutening! We only ate out 3 times and two of those were to get breakfast at Bob Evans and we ordered the same meal twice. We did end up going out for seafood on our last night there and bonus they had gluten-free beer and hard cider!

5Tips for Eating Real Food While Traveling | www.livingsurrendered.com

1. Plan everything - This is a pretty obvious tip. Planning is essential to making sure you know what you’ll be having each meal so you can shop and pack accordingly. For example, we pack our organic ketchup, raw honey, and nonGMO goods like corn chips because we don’t want to get stuck eating the alternative. Luckily, most major cities have stores like Whole Foods or something similar so you can shop if you need to. We planned our meals, snacks, stops, and pre-looked up restaurants that offered gluten free foods before we left which made the trip a lot smoother than past ones. We also downloaded apps on our phone to look up brands and ingredients when we were in a pinch (like a rest stop in PA).

5Tips for Eating Real Food While Traveling | www.livingsurrendered.com

2. Pre-package foods – this was a major time saver and convenience for us. We bought a bunch of fruit and veggies, cut them up and packaged them in snack sized bags. It was awesome to be able to grab the bags and go.

Snacks: organic applesauce, carrots, cucumbers, grapes, apples, mangoes, organic cheese slices, dried apple chips, homemade GF oatmeal cookies, pineapple, bananas, nuts, GF granola, larabars, dates, chocolate, organic lunchmeat, kombucha, salsa, sweet potato chips, corn chips.

 3. Pack your cooler right to prevent food spoiling – Last year when we went camping, we put our gluten-free bread in the cooler, on top. As the ice melted it also seeped into our bread wrapper and soaked it. This time we bought freezer Ziploc bags and sealed our ice in those. Put a baking rack on top of the bags, then pack your food and you’re far less likely to get leaks. We also double bag or use an air-tight container for anything that might get spoiled easily.

5Tips for Eating Real Food While Traveling | www.livingsurrendered.com

4. Have a picnic lunch or dinner instead of fast food – My dad was never a huge fast food fan, so he always packed coolers of food every where we went. He still does that today. So does my mom.. check her purse and you’re likely to find bananas, almonds and granola bars. I’m keeping the tradition alive by stopping at rest stops to make healthy lunches instead of ordering gut bombs at Taco Bell.

5Tips for Eating Real Food While Traveling | www.livingsurrendered.com

 5. If you have to eat out or on the go, go for the least processed foods. When we eat out, we obviously don’t eat any gluten, but we also aim to avoid too much sugar, salt, preservatives and artificial flavoring. This usually means ordering unsweetened drinks, low sodium meals and vegetable sides instead of fries or chips. Neil brings his own sweetener and uses that in his black coffee or tea if he wants it since we avoid Splenda like the plague. I drink my coffee and tea black, because I’m an old person trapped in a young person’s body. Or, so the gal at the coffee shop says.

5Tips for Eating Real Food While Traveling | www.livingsurrendered.com

This trip, although long to drive, was a really good trip. I had more energy when I got back home than in the past and I didn’t get sick once. I also didn’t bloat from eating garbage and felt proud that we were able to stay on track with our healthy lifestyle.

Do any of you travel a lot while maintaining a healthy lifestyle? Any tips you want to share?

 


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 4

Latest Images

Trending Articles





Latest Images