Traveling Nutrition

I am trying to take a cross country road trip for several weeks and I am unsure on how to eat while traveling that long.  Eating out is not really in my budget.  My current diet looks something like:

Meal 1: Salad with Kale, collard greens, mustard greens, olives, fish/chicken, olive oil and lemon.

Meal 2: This meal varies, but is usually a protein source with a side salad.

Meal 3: 5 egg omelet with 4-5 cups of spinach/ spring mix.

Snacks: Tons of fruit between meals.  Lately it has been plums and cherries.

What would you guys recommend to get while driving cross country?

Jerky would be a definite for me. That and homemade trail mix.

Any tips on how to get in my veggies.  Beef jerky and trail mix are great for short trips but not sustainable for several weeks.

Either freeze dried(camping style) or gonna have to stop at food stores and just buy a crap ton of greens in a bag/box every few days. Can also get frozen veggies and just let them dethaw in the car and eat them as they go.

Take a camping cooker with you.  If you're staying in hotels, take your crockpot.    Invest in a cooler.  Your traveling buddies will think you are weird, but there are worse things.

Now, please report back and let us know how it went.     Have fun on your vacation.

Ive used a rice cooker/ steamer and made chicken/rice and vegetables in it before.  That works pretty well.

If you have no method of cooking then you can try dried meats as was mentioned.  I personally do not like most jerky and make my own.

You can also try borts (mongolian dried beef/yak) , pemmican (favorite of native americans).  Basically just variations of dried meat and fat. 

Vegetables are a little tricker.  Freeze dried is a good call and they can be rehydrated with boiling water.  

Honestly this is a good case for breads.  I wouldn't go get the nearest loaf of white bread but a nice rye, or sourdough made from fermented grains would be fine.  You could also do rice cakes/crackers.  I wouldn't do too much of this unless activity is higher.

Grabbing occasional fruit along the way is pretty good too as are the occasional raw veggies.  I can guarantee that ancient nomadic tribes were eating berries and root vegetables as they traveled and you could do the same.  

Nuts are also good.  You can use these for fat.  You can also bring olive oil to dip your bread into. Yum..

When Camping I will also sometimes do soup using dried beans and beef using bouillon to flavor.  This is a big hit on a cold night.

Travel anxiety?       

I'm all for proper nutrition and all, but dude, don't let it turn into an eating disorder. Seriously, this is the kind of thing that self-mutilating teenage girls spend time contemplating.

Honestly, just enjoy your trip, and be relaxed about your nutrition, because:

1: You might get to taste new exciting foods, that you're not used to, and...

2: A few weeks is nothing in the big picture. 

Ravn said:

Travel anxiety?       

 

I'm all for proper nutrition and all, but dude, don't let it turn into an eating disorder. Seriously, this is the kind of thing that self-mutilating teenage girls spend time contemplating.

 

Honestly, just enjoy your trip, and be relaxed about your nutrition, because:

1: You might get to taste new exciting foods, that you're not used to, and...

2: A few weeks is nothing in the big picture. 

I get what you are saying, but that is not really my concern.  I have no doubt I will enjoy this and its not like I am going to bring a food scale with me haha.  Several weeks is just too long to eat nothing but junk food and way to expensive to eat out.  I just got back from shooting a documentary in Milwaukee and the organizer bought all of the food - nothing but peanut butter sandwiches and hotdogs for days.  Never again.  I found myself spending my own money just to go out and by vegetables - the cravings were just so bad.  Now I am funding my own trip so I might as well bring food that wont make me sick, I just don't know what to get.  

Ravn said:

Travel anxiety?       

 

I'm all for proper nutrition and all, but dude, don't let it turn into an eating disorder. Seriously, this is the kind of thing that self-mutilating teenage girls spend time contemplating.

 

Honestly, just enjoy your trip, and be relaxed about your nutrition, because:

1: You might get to taste new exciting foods, that you're not used to, and...

2: A few weeks is nothing in the big picture. 

Dude all he asked for  was some tips for his trip - nothing to face palm about. 

I personally hate being away from home for this very reason, I'm about to go to Fiji for a couple of weeks and I've started thinking about the different ways I can avoid getting too far off my current track. If you listened to Coach in the last podcast he talked about injuring yourself and not being able to train for 2 weeks, then taking 2 weeks to get back to your pre-injury state - so in effect you lost 4 weeks. The same can easily apply to your diet, no? Go a little crazy for 4 weeks and put on a little weigh, big deal right? Take another 4 weeks to get back to where you were and you've gone nowhere in 8 weeks! That is a significant amount of time for someone who takes their training day by day.

I assume you wouldn't say don't worry about your Foundation for several weeks too? For some of us it takes weeks to get into a routine and it is understandable to not want to have to start again.

Washienko, you seem to know what you should be eating so just make the best decision you can when you are out there. My staples for when I don't have cooking facilities are:

Nuts - mainly walnuts, brazil nuts and almonds

Tinned Tuna/Salmon

Dried Cranberries

Avocado

Milk

And then when you get somewhere you can cook, find some fresh beef or chicken and have some vegetables/salad. I wouldn't be afraid to be repetitive for the sake of simplicity. I also find it easiest to leave the majority of my carbs until later in the day when I have time to prepare them.

Good luck

I'm all for a good diet, but yes, I think training is more important. If you're used to getting your stuff from supermarkets, I just don't see what all the fuss is about -there are supermarkets on the road too, right?

Polar explorers and climbers live on conserved food for months on end and are still able to perform at extreme levels. I'm not saying to go nuts on French fries, just relax and enjoy yourselves. Unless you've got a medical condition I think that worrying about nutrition over such a short time span is indicative of a stay-in-my-bubble-at-all-costs first world problem. And nobody likes first world problems

Like Ravn says, if you're going to be passing by grocery stores, things shouldn't be too difficult. You may not be able to eat fancy meals and get as much variety as you would at home, but provided you bring a few plastic bowls and plates, a peeler, some cutlery, and maybe a little camping cutting board, you shouldn't have too many issues. 

Fruits are easy as you just buy them, rinse them under the tap and eat. 

Things that come to mind for veggies that can easily be washed and prepped in a hotel/motel room: 

- Tomatoes

- Cucumbers

- Peppers

- Carrots

- Radishes

- Avocados

- Pre-washed salad mix, kale, arugula etc...

- Onions/green onions

You can eat the tomatoes or cucumbers straight, or you can mix them with onions, olives, feta, and olive oil and squeezed lemon juice to make a greek salad. You could also buy a small tube of dijon mustard and mix it with the olive oil and some lemon juice to make salad dressing. You can always add sunflower or pumpkin seeds to the salad to mix things up a little. 

Protein sources can come in the form of canned tuna, salmon, sardines +/- sliced turkey, ham, or salami. You can mix these in with the salad or buy pita bread and mix some of these in with tomatoes, cucumbers, cheese and mustard to make a sandwich. 

If you need to get your eggs every day and you can't hit a diner to get them, then you'll have to buy a little camping burner and pot, but I think this would be overkill. If money is that big a deal, just buy some greek yoghurt in the morning, mix in some berries and seeds and a bit of honey from a small tube and you're done. You could also just buy bread and peanut butter and top it with honey. 

Other than the yoghurt, all these things keep well and don't need refrigeration. I just got back from a week-long remote wilderness canoe trip with my wife and 2-year old, and this is what mostly made up our breakfasts and lunches. Worked well despite not having access to stores, electricity, plumbing, cellullar coverage, roads, or any other signs of civilization. You should therefore do just fine