Tasty Tuesday: On the Road, Plant Based Style
This is not my adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s famous novel. Instead of jazz, poetry, and drug use there were Truck Tunes, baby books, and green smoothies. We returned last week from a northeast tour attending a wedding with a few stops on the way back to visit family and friends. All in all it was a success and finding food was the least of our challenges. In the past I’ve had some questions about how to find plant based food while traveling, so I thought I would share how our plant based family does it in case it is helpful in your own travels.
-Bring a blender: Usually I bring a small personal one but since there was room in the car we went with the full sized Ninja this time. It worked out great because T was on a huge smoothie kick and I was able to load him up with nutrients. I also brought things from home like bananas, pre-washed greens, fruit, chia seeds, avocado, and cartons of soy milk in case we ended up without a grocery store nearby at any of our stops. We tend do do smoothies for breakfast on the road which saves money since it’s one meal we don’t have to go out for.
-Research your route: If you have a smart phone, it’s easy to find plant based restaurant options when traveling. If you aren’t sure which restaurants offer plant based options, you can download an app like Happy Cow which will tell you all known plant based restaurants in any given place. We were lucky to find some fabulous food in Providence, RI, went to one of the top plant based restaurants in the country in CT, and had serious decision fatigue by the time we left NYC (so much good food, so little time!) We even had a yummy plant based dinner at the wedding reception (thanks Mary and Mike!)
-Don’t forget the snacks, especially if you have a toddler!: We brought some easy to eat finger food for T like cut up fruit, bananas, tortilla chips, and brown rice crackers. T will do anything for a date (the fruit, not the romantic hangout) so we also had a pack of those hiding in the glove compartment in case things got dire.
-Have a few “meal extenders” just in case: When in doubt, you can usually find something like a salad or baked potato even in the middle of nowhere. Plain salads and baked potatoes can get old so I like to bring along things like my own dressing, nutritional yeast (affectionately called “nooch” in our house, it tastes a lot better than it sounds I promise….), avocados, and boxes of beans. You could bring canned beans, but I prefer the boxes because you don’t need a can opener.
-Stay somewhere that has a kitchen: While not always possible, it helps and is a great way to save money. We do this a lot, which allows us to have several meals in and leaves room to splurge a bit if me and J get a date night during the trip.
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T fueling up with a smoothie before the wedding reception