Before Taking Your Next Trip, READ THIS FIRST

“Where is the healthy food near me?”  I have asked myself this question numerous times while traveling.  If you are as committed to eating clean and toxin free as I am, you absolutely hate to compromise the food you consume.  If you are in a large city, options usually exist.  However, this is not always the case when in a small town or on the road.

Typical Options – Don’t Give In!

Salt Flats in Utah

The idea for this blog post originated with a recent trip to Utah.  We were out near the Bonneville Salt Flats and Speedway.  What a beautiful place with a unique landscape.  Yet, with only a small town near by, diet options can be limited to salt and casino or fast food.  If you are craving salt due to adrenal fatigue, this may be the place for you.  Yet, not ideal for the rest of us.

So about 4:30pm, my wife and I agree we are hungry.  “Let me google healthy food near me”, she says.  Even with her ninja googling skills, she could not come up with anything within a reasonable driving distance.  And while the high priced menus at the local casinos had countless options to choose from, none of them had a toxin free food, let alone local sourced.  One menu did actually have a “free range chicken” dish listed.  Of course that restaurant was closed during the middle of the week.  No worries, we came up with a plan.

Post Trip Quilt and Discomfort

Before I tell you how we overcame the lack of food options, you should know that it turned out to be a blessing.  Lack of easy, prepared food options while traveling is a blessing?  Yes!

You are already out of your norm.  Eating at odd times, altered sleep schedule and eating foods that you would not normally eat.  And why does your nervous system insist on telling your gut to slow down to a snail’s pace?  That just makes things even worse.  Weight gain, sluggish gut, bloating and fatigue are part of the post-trip quilt and discomfort that are so common.  We have all experienced it.  Not to mention that coming back home does not immediately resolve your new found dysfunction.

It takes one day to disrupt the function of the gut when you are not in your normal pattern.  14 days is the shortest time frame that I have seen to improve the gut, and that was with high dose added supplementation.  So if you are not eating well while traveling, one day could be enough to to make the rest of your trip uncomfortable.  Is this how you want to spend the rest of your next trip?  Let me share with you how to make day one of your next trip a success and not a snow ball rolling down hill that turns you into a hot mess by the time you get home.

“Where is the Healthy Food Near Me?” – Answer Revealed

Healthy Food Near Me

When the google search failed to provide healthy food near me, here was the solution we came up with.  Part of it started before I left home.

• Bars – NEVER travel without bars.  They are the best emergency food.  I have an assortment that I use, but the one that I like to replace proteins in my diet is Epic Bars.  There are similar options available.  This is an excellent way to make sure you are getting grass-fed, wild meats in your diet.  And they travel great.  You can stuff them in your suit case or travel bag without taking up hardly any room.
• Grocery Store – This is the only place to find organic food in a small town.  Even the smallest town in Utah had organic food in the grocery store.  Awesome!  You have options.  Forget the restaurant.  We picked up several items that we normally eat at home and still did not prepare a thing.  Raw vegetables, nuts, hummus, guacamole, almond milk, fruit, etc. (You will see everything in the picture).  There was enough left over that we had breakfast and lunch the next day also.  Here is an added benefit.  All of this food cost us $43.  Eating out, which would have also been unhealthy, would have cost easily $200 for those 3 meals.  Seems like the argument for healthy food being too expensive just failed when put to the test!

Bonus Tips to Make Your Next Trip a Success

• Supplements – Healthy food near me may not be food at all.  Since you are not eating locally sourced food, keep your routine supplementation with you.  Nutrient deficiencies are a cause of post travel fatigue.  Supplementing makes up the difference for what you are not getting through your diet.  At a minimum, take your multivitamin.
• Planning – “Oh no, there is no healthy food near me” is usually the result of not planning.  Know your itinerary.  Know what is going to be around you at your destination.  If you take just a few minutes before you trip to plan out your foods, it will save your literally days and weeks of quilt, discomfort and a lighter wallet after your trip.

With a little planning, you can eat clean, avoid wasting money on unhealthy food and avoid the post-travel quilt and discomfort.  What better way to stay connected to your food than not disconnecting from it on your next trip.  Make sure you save this blog post in your favorites for future reference.  From time to time we all have to travel and your next trip may be sooner than you anticipate.