Better Health & Living
Eating On The Run
It's vacation time! To avoid sabotaging all your healthy eating habits, follow these 6 smart rules of the road.
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Summertime brings flights to Grandma’s, road trips to the beach, and on-the-go adventures of all kinds. We leave behind all our troubles and cares—and, all too often, every healthy eating habit we’ve ever learned. We grab ‘n’ go, pull into drive-thrus, munch at mini-marts, or succumb to the convenience of vending machines, usually eating all the wrong stuff.
Just look at your dining options at the airport. You walk 20 to 30 steps, expending about a third of a calorie, to get from one fatty temptation to another. “At airports, you negotiate food courts packed with fast food, newsstands selling candy bars and Fritos, vending machines stocked with sodas, Starbucks pastry counters, and ice cream shops,” says frequent flyer Evelyn Tribole, R.D., author of Stealth Health
No matter how you travel—by plane, train, bus, or car—the choices are abysmal. It’s tempting to ignore common sense and indulge in snacks you’d never eat otherwise. But you can save some money—and your waistline—if you have a healthy eating plan when you’re on the run. Here are my six rules of the road.
Make eating part of the adventure
Choose only foods that add to the vacation spirit and boost your health. You can eat a double cheeseburger anywhere, so savor a burrito at the Albuquerque airport, try dim sum at a restaurant in San Francisco’s Chinatown, or slurp a cup of chowder while visiting relatives in Boston—then skip the burger, which is not the energy-boosting meal you need to successfully survive crossing three time zones, let alone provide a summer memory.Drive by the drive-thrus
When everyone gets hungry, you can avoid looking for the golden arches if you’re prepared. Pack a cooler with yogurt, sandwiches, fruit, low-fat cheese, water, small cartons of fat-free milk, cans of juice, cherry tomatoes, bags of baby carrots, whole wheat crackers and peanut butter, small boxes of raisins, homemade snack mixes made with popcorn or pretzels and nuts, fig bars, and a few energy bars.Take food with you
You wouldn’t forget to pack your toothbrush or clean underwear (hopefully). Well, don’t forget your travel K-rations. Always pack your briefcase, roll-on, backpack, purse, or even a paper bag with healthy travel foods, whether you’re headed to the airport or just running last-minute errands before the trip begins. Here are some foods that travel well.- Unsalted nuts, fresh fruit, cut-up veggies, string cheese, and/or boxed juice—easy to carry for kids and adults
- Freeze-dried vegetable soups that just require adding hot water
- Starkist Charlie’s Lunch Kit, which comes with tuna, crackers, and its own dish; just go light on the mayo and complement the snack with an apple or grapes
- Berries, cottage cheese, and nuts tossed into a washed yogurt container so you can throw it away after eating
- Leftover chicken, beans, and other goodies wrapped in lettuce and stored in individual resealable plastic bags
See “The Fab 5 Travel Food Groups” for more great ideas.
Limit alcohol
The combination of a little alcohol, travel, and hunger heralds a throw-caution-to-the-winds blowout by dinnertime. Make predinner drinks nonalcoholic and savor one glass of wine with your meal. Needless to say, don’t drink if you’re driving.
Don’t skip meals
Eat regularly, starting with breakfast, to avoid becoming hungry enough to eat multiple bags of peanuts on the plane.
Stay away from the mini-bar
You’ll only regret the billion calories you inhale in chips, candy bars, and roasted nuts. When it comes to room service, ask about your options. Sweet talk the server by asking, “I’d like scrambled eggs with sliced tomatoes, a glass of OJ, and dry whole wheat toast. Can I get that?” Also, ask them not to bring hash browns, butter, sausage, or the bread basket. Otherwise, to your chagrin, you’ll eat every last morsel. Then there’s the poor person’s alternative to room service: Carry individual boxes of cereal or instant oatmeal, purchase a little carton of fat-free milk and a banana the night before, keep the milk cold in the ice bucket (or mini-bar) overnight, and make your own breakfast in the morning.
Our newest regular contributor, Elizabeth Somer, R.D., is a Gold Member of Continental‘s Frequent Flyer Club and author of several books, including her most recent, The 10 Habits That Mess Up a Woman’s Diet
The Fab 5 Travel Food Groups
Fruit, lettuce, bread (whole wheat when possible), chicken, and water serve as great takeout meals for cars, trains, buses, or planes.
- Find a fruit basket with apples, oranges, or bananas.
- Think grilled or baked, from grilled chicken sandwiches and salads to a plain baked potato.
- Make an open-faced sandwich (and save up to 150 calories) by discarding the top piece of bread.
- Grab a fast-food salad. Toss out the croutons, thick dressing, and cheese and complement the meal with a glass of OJ or low-fat milk.
- Be vocal. Ask for the burrito without cheese and sour cream. Send it back if your request is ignored.
- Go easy on salty foods that compound dehydration and traveler’s fatigue.
- Select pretzels, diet soft drinks, or nuts from the vending machine.
Oops, I Forgot to Pack!
Forgot to eat before setting out? No travel rations? Not to worry.
Think of water as your best friend. The humidity in an airplane is as low as 2 percent, which leads to major dehydration, fatigue, and jet lag. Take a water bottle with you, order three glasses of water every time you’re offered a drink (drink at least two glasses per hour), and skip the salty snacks, alcohol, and caffeinated beverages, such as coffee and cola, since they aggravate dehydration.
Make the best of it with healthy plane or train drinks, such as tomato juice or Bloody Mary mix, orange or grapefruit juice, or fat-free or low-fat milk.
Eat light. Airline and train portions might be small, but that doesn’t mean they’re low-cal. A smoked turkey and cheese sandwich with chips and a cookie packs up to 950 calories and 50 grams of fat! Toss anything you don’t want, including the chips, cookie, mayo packet, and one slice of bread.
Just say no. You don’t have to eat a greasy calzone just because it is served to you. You won’t starve, even on a transcontinental flight. “We Americans are so concerned about eating enough that we sometimes forget that it’s okay to just skip a bad meal entirely,” says Adam Drewnowski, Ph.D., professor in the departments of epidemiology and medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle.
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