Best Healthy Foods to Keep While Travelling
Planning a road trip? Excellent!
Traveling, in my opinion, is a fun, educational, exhausting, and adventurous experience that is worth all the effort. Speaking as someone who has always loved to be on the road, I genuinely feel that once you get used to the idea of traveling in your vehicle, you will not go back to using any other means of transportation.
Earlier, people would advise me against road trips saying traveling long distances with young kids is a nightmare. To be honest, it scared me too. But what I didn’t do is refrain from experiencing it. Although, 15 minutes into the drive and everyone gets hungry!
That’s the beauty of road trips. Everyone has fun, there is more bonding time, everyone eats together and learns to co-operate with each other. Food is a mandatory and huge part of successful trips. Planning and carrying the right kind of food during the journey is another important decision that needs to be made, especially if you have young kids on board.
Food Mistakes to Avoid While Travelling
From what I have learned over the years, I would love to share a few insights to help your journey become a fun experience for your whole family.
- Start your day with a healthy breakfast like whole-grain cereal or sandwich along with fruit that provides you with the much-needed nutrition you need to function properly. An empty stomach may cause fatigue, dampen your mood, and can also cause an onset of indigestion.
- Keep a variety of healthy, mess-free snacks that you and the kids can munch on.
- Be mindful of what you’re eating, especially if you are going to remain seated for a longer time.
- Drink lots of water to keep your body hydrated and also to help you curb excessive eating.
- Eat in well-managed proportions to avoid all that motion ride to cause any sickness.
Healthy Food Options to Carry
As tempting as it may seem to order a take-out for the road or grab a ton of loads of sugary treats, you will regret that decision. It is undoubtedly a delicious option but devoid of any nutritional value.
While on the go, you may want to choose lighter, healthier options to avoid any discomfort or indigestion, like heavy food and traveling are not an ideal mix. Especially if it is summer, as food goes bad quickly. Following are some delicious, savory yet healthy options of wholesome meals and snacks when you’re on the road. You may want to make variations according to your family preferences and eating habits.
1. Protein Bars
Protein bars are a great source of instant energy boost and serve as a healthy option for snacking provided that it has low sugar and lacks added preservatives. Take your time in finding protein bars that are made of organic, natural ingredients with at least 20 grams of dairy-based protein and a maximum of 300 calories.
A wide range of protein bars are available in the market, but not all of them are healthy. The majority of them are harmful to your body if you consume them daily. They are high in calories, sugar, added preservatives and give your body a sugar rush which may be confused with feeling energized.
A trusted brand option is Built Bar, with 11 different flavors, high fiber content, and low sugar. You can avail of this Built Bar Coupon to get a discounted deal on your preferred choice of protein bar.
2. Beef Jerky
Beef jerky is always a trusted on-the-go option for road trips due to it being portable and having a long shelf life. It is also a great source of protein and other vitamins and minerals like zinc, iron, phosphorous, folate, and vitamin B12.
It is advisable to purchase this item from your local natural food store as many market available options are high in sodium and loaded with preservatives.
3. Trail Mix/ Dried Fruits
Often considered expensive and rather overrated, trail mixes can be highly nutritional if made with the correct ingredients.
Ideally, trail mix should be a combination of granola, dried fruits, nuts, and sometimes candy. The sweet is there to encourage young ones and those adults who run away from anything that lacks sugary treats. Since it is an easy composition, we prefer to make our customized version. This enables us to add ingredients that we like and remove others.
4. Sandwiches
These are great travel food options as they are mess-free, easy to make, and liked by all! With a handful of pantry ingredients and minimal preparation time, you can pack a variety of different sandwich options according to your family choices.
Peanut butter, ham, and cheese, pita pockets, turkey, or plain old chicken sandwiches are just a few options. Try using baguettes, tortillas, or pita bread to avoid soggy, drippy sandwiches which are messy and difficult to eat in the car.
5. Hard Boiled Eggs
The best source of lean meat protein, hard-boiled eggs is the easiest, mess-free, and portable snack option. You can eat them as a whole or in combination with salty crackers for a more varied experience.
You can also mash them with butter, salt, and pepper and use them as a filling for sandwiches that are filling and serve as a wholesome meal.
6. Fruits and Veggies
In my experience, we eat while traveling not only because we are hungry but more often due to being bored. A better way is to munch on carrots, cucumbers, grapes, bananas, or apples instead of greasy, sodium-rich, packaged snacks.
Fruits and vegetables not only provide you the needed sugar and nutrition but help you stay focused and alert. Fruits like cucumber and grapes will also help to keep your body hydrated.
Even though packaged snacks are not recommended, you can always indulge yourself once in a while, making a conscious effort to avoid them at other times. Whether you choose one of these options or none at all, stay hydrated, eat small, frequent meals and make lots of happy memories on your trip. To easily carry such and other items while traveling, Hobo bags offers amazing suitcases and bags.
Happy traveling!