Making healthy choices when you travel and are on the road can be a real challenge. Today I am going to help you make some healthier choices!
-Travelling by car can be incredibly boring. Munching on lollies and high-fat, salty snacks fills in time but can end up making you feel tired and irritable. Somehow by sitting in one place virtually immobile you can still feel absolutely starving
-The trick to healthy travel is to have healthy snacks packed in advance. Bananas, apples, grapes, dried apricots, figs, pretzels, plain popcorn, low-fat crackers and small muesli bars are a few ideas. Keep snacks in sealed containers or re-sealable food bags to keep them fresh and prevent them from being squashed.
-If you are often in the car at meal times or rushing around and end up missing meals or grabbing something junky, think ahead instead! Pack a small chilly bag in the car and it will keep yoghurts, drinks and sandwiches fresh. Take plenty of bottled water with you; some chilled, some frozen. That way you will always have a refreshing cold drink on hand. Add slices of orange, lemon, lime or a sprig of mint to your water to spruce up the flavour.
-Stopping for petrol is inevitable, but eating a pie or chocolate doesn’t have to be. If you’re not hungry but get that urge to buy something, go for sugar-free gum, mints or Tic Tacs. If you are hungry and ready for a meal or snack, plan what you are going to have before you go into the shop. Opt for a sandwich, sushi, plain popcorn, pretzels, a small bag of unsalted nuts (a 30g packet not 150g!) a muesli bar, yoghurt drink or fruit smoothie.
If you have a treat, keep it small: a single Whittaker’s dark chocolate finger, an individual packet of low-fat chips or a kid-size packet of lollies to share.
A family-sized packet of chips contains 74g of fat (two golf balls worth!) and a family-sized bag of lollies is equal to 23 teaspoons of sugar, which you don’t really burn off by sitting on your bum for six hours.
Here are some top tips if you are going for a family car trip…
• 1 = Think about length of journey and take enough healthy food to keep you all going.
• 2 = Be strategic about where you stop: if you’re not hungry and don’t need to buy food, go to a petrol station with a small shop; there will be less tempting food on show.
• 3 = Take a picnic and make it a fun part of the journey – plan your journey to go past a park or nature reserve so you can have a toilet and walk stop and a healthy lunch.
• 4 = Keep the journey fun so that food isn’t the only distraction: play eye spy, count red cars, hunt the alphabet out on number plates, or listen to music.
• 5 = Plan your breaks – have ‘comfort’ and stretch stops by walkways, parks or rivers rather than at a café or fast food place.
• 6 = Take your portable snacks with you.
For more ideas about eating well on the go, ... go to healthyfood.co.nz, or pick up a copy of Healthy Food Guide magazine, only $5.50 from supermarkets and bookstores.
