June 11, 2011 by Stacy McDonald
Eating Healthy on the Road
Over the years, our family has traveled many thousands of miles together, across the country and beyond, speaking at family conferences, homeschool conventions, and churches. Of course, now that we’ve married off a few children, our clan of twelve is now a dwindling group of nine. And the diapers and port-a-cribs we used to need are no longer necessary. Since our little ones are growing up, in some ways traveling is easier.
However, as our diets have become healthier, and three of us are necessarily “gluten free,” eating on the road is a bit more complicated. On our recent trip to California (a very long 3-day drive), we decided to prepare ahead and make meals we could eat at rest stops. This ensured a faster trip; provided healthier, gluten free meals; and was a lot cheaper than filling up on garbage at fast food joints along the way.
For breakfast, we had things like yogurt, granola, fruit, sliced kielbasa, cheese, rice crackers, and bacon we cooked ahead. We thought about doing boiled eggs, but nobody sounded excited about that. For lunch and dinner, here are a few of our recipes:
Mexican Black Bean Quinoa Salad (You can use risotto rice in place of the quinoa, but you’ll be missing out on the extra protein and the great taste and texture of quinoa).
Italian Black Bean Salad – This can be served with or without meat and still gives a boost of protein.
Anti-Orzo Salad – This is one of my favorites! Great served alongside grilled chicken!
Thai Noodle Salad with Chicken – A wonderfully refreshing summertime salad! Easy and travels/stores very well!
Lebanese Tabbouleh Salad – A gluten free twist on traditional tabbouleh!
I had also cooked and seasoned ground beef ahead of time. I froze it so that it would slowly defrost in the cooler. The first night in a hotel, we had taco salad using the made-ahead beef, shredded lettuce, grape tomatoes, shredded cheese, a healthy salad dressing, and tortilla chips. We served this in paper bowls and had a nice, healthy meal in our room without having to pay for room service!
Eating healthy isn’t too difficult if you get excited about it. And the tastes are out of this world! You’ll feel better and you’ll find that food that hasn’t been “re-invented” or ravaged really does taste better!
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13 Responses to “Eating Healthy on the Road”
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Great article! I have driven 2400 miles each way by myself 2xs this year and we are about to do it a 3rd time the end of this month! (Crazy, I know…we have had several deaths and a wedding to attend to). Anyhow, 3 of us are gluten free AND dairy free. I really look forward to trying some of your recipes for our upcoming trip! Thank you for posting them!
I have learned to use rice cakes with peanut butter and jelly for lunch. Also rolled up deli meat (you can put cheese inside if you can eat dairy or use vegan cheese) with pickles (yum) and pretzels. My husband usually grills up some chicken strips for us as well. I like the idea of taco salad. Yum! Thanks again for posting this…it’s got me thinking ahead and getting excited for our next trip! Blessings and Shalom!
Leah
Great! Some of this can be modified, it would seem, for low carb and I didn’t realize, until looking just now, how low on the glycemic index quinoa is. If any of your readers are familiar with a low-carb/gycemic style of eating during travel, I’d love to hear how they manage. My dh was recently listed diabetic, (type 2) and we are trying to cure him, or at least manage with minimal medication. Going low carb has had amazing results on his levels.
More interesting facts about quinoa HERE
Cheryl, coconut is very good for diabetics too. I use organic coconut milk, coconut oil, coconut flakes, and coconut flour in a number of my recipes! I love coconut!
Breakfast tip: If you open a can of organic coconut milk, mix together the cream with the liquid, and then refrigerate it, the result is a creamy substance that resembles sour cream. You can add berries (I like it with bananas) and honey (though it’s naturally sweet) to make a wonderful creamy breakfast meal that replaces dairy (for those who can’t do dairy).
Leah – yes, we’ve done the meat rolls as well. It’s fun to make lettuce wraps or corn tortilla wraps too!
Also, we sometimes do grilled chicken strips over a salad. That can all be made ahead easily stored in the cooler. Or, you can pick up organic, bagged, washed lettuce on the road. I have the other veggies done ahead, so they can be washed. Just like my ground beef, you can freeze the grilled chicken strips ahead and let them defrost in the iced cooler (depending upon how long your drive is, this keeps the meat fresher).
We seem to always want something crunchy when we’re on the road, so we pack plenty of rice crackers, GF chips, GF pretzels etc. Also, Costco has a lot of gluten free snacks available. And Lara bars are gluten free.
I’m glad you still have plenty of younger ones to keep you company :)
This is a great topic, Stacy! Thanks so much for sharing your experiences and recipes here. We make your Lebanese flatbread a lot in the summer time and we love it for pizzas on the grill.
When we travel, we usually take mostly our own food as well because we found that we just “feel” better when we’re still eating our own cooking. Plus the processed foods don’t sit too well with my husband anymore (which is a good thing, but it complicates matters, as you mentioned). It can be a challenge getting ready beforehand, but the effort is well worth it.
We’ve been blessed to be able to stay in hotels with refrigerators and microwaves–makes life so much easier–but I also bring a crockpot with me to heat things in if we’re staying more than one night in a hotel.
These are great tips–keep them coming:)!
MrsSM
Great! I’ll do more reading about quinoa. We do like it, but I have only started trying to figure out the best way to manage within a lower carb/low glycemic diet, so I’m glad to find I can add more of this grain into our diets. I will be printing some of the recipes you linked, and using quinoa with them, as well as substituting it for the rice in older recipes.
We already discovered some of the joys of coconut. I’m still learning some, but coconut flour has saved pizza night for him. I found a very easy coconut flour crust I load with pizza toppings, though I continue with the whole wheat crust for the kids. He has no problem with dairy, other than the fact that the sugars in milk are not good carbs, and we do not have access to raw whole milk, so we limit it more to cream and butter.
Any crunchy snack ideas along this line? Pork rinds get old, fast, and he loves his crunch. He shouldn’t do rice cakes, pretzels, corn chips, or otherwise. I’m trying to find a substitute “crunch” food for long drives.
Thank you for this post! We’re moving in a few months (from CA to AZ, we sure will miss CVP!) and have a baby due just before we move. I’d be wanting to try to do healthy meals on the road anyways, but we can already tell that the baby will most likely have an egg issue, making this all the more important. I’ll have to be careful with what I’m eating (which is something I’m really not used to doing on the road). It looks like some of these suggestions will work for our family! I’ll have to give them a try ahead of time. I love your breakfast suggestions too!
Thanks again!
This is timely. In a couple of weeks we are taking 8 children on a 14 day trip out west to visit relatives…and camping all the way. (MN to CA) I’ve been vexing about what to do food-wise. Thank you for the great ideas…and inspiration. ; )
Cheryl,
One great crunchy snack idea is “crispy nuts.” You soak raw nuts overnight in pure water and salt, then in the morning drain. Spread the nuts on a baking sheet/jelly roll pan and dehydrate at the lowest temp. your oven can handle. Dry until crisp. We do cashews (only soak about 4 hours, though, since these are not truly raw), almonds, pecans and walnuts. I’ve also done pepitas and sunflower seeds with very nice results. Mix with coconut flakes, dried unsweetened bananas and, if you want a “trail mix” feel, throw in organic raisins, snipped up prunes and dried unsulphured apricots or apples. Very crunchy, crisp, and satisfying. The nice thing is that very little goes a long way… this is so nourishing, one handful can last 2-3 hours.
Also, dehydrated peas and carrots is a delicious savory combination, if you like to dehydrate.
Thanks, Lisa.
We have a dehydrator, but not enough time and space to pull it out at the moment, so I may see what my oven can handle. Soon we won’t have an oven for a time, so I’ll have to figure out something else, or find space for the dehydrator! I have read that dehydrating the nuts and seeds is better than the canned roasting they do on commercially prepared, but I may find some options at Whole Foods that are ready to go.
Cheryl,
We went low carb back in 2004 working through all the phases of Atkins. It is wonderful and helped my hypoglycemic symptoms as well as my weight (I didn’t even know that was my problem until I read the book. We were having a lot of marital squabbles and it turned out it was my eating! I also didn’t know I could ever be different..until I was 3 weeks after starting ANA). I would never go back..and besides it is easy and great tasting and keeps you in control. I dont even count carbs anymore. I just know what kind of foods and amount to eat or lay off of. It is just a WOE that equalls EAT REAL FOOD, lol.
Anyway, what you eat depends on how many & types of carbs you are currently able to handle (read more on the atkins website and the forums there are great for interaction on the topic with others who have suceeded.)
Some ideas off the top of my head are:
Cheese cubes, meat cubes or sticks, taco salad (not with chips), olives, hardboiled eggs/devilled eggs, cream cheese or natural peanut butter on celery, soy crisps, Atkins shakes (not because you need them but they are pretty healthy, filling and yummy), berries, any salads with low carb ingredients, other veggies like raw zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower with ranch dressing (homemade or under 1 carb per serving) or homemade dip. Fast food places like Dairy Queen have good salads for a decent price & size. You might need to use your own dressing though. Peanuts are also good. Or flax muffins & pancakes. Quiche (love it ..so versitile). There is much more..just brainstorm and use a cooler. The flax muffin recipe is on my family blog page if you want it.
Thank you, Diana!
I’m sorry I’m just getting back to this post. I am still brainstorming various ideas. We don’t know yet how much he can handle, as far as carbs are concerned. That will likely take time to figure out. Meanwhile, I am cautious about what I serve, and find the experiments on carb tolerance show up when we’re offered food from others and he decides to cheat a bit. LOL! We’ll find out how much cheating his body can handle, I’m sure.
I will hunt for more options in veggies, since he grew up having large amounts of chips with everything, so veggie eating is not something that’s quite as natural at this point.
Heading over to look at the muffin recipe!