If meal prepping during the week at home can be a little challenging, it can become a more challenging task when you are planning a trip with your family members.
No matter if you are traveling by car, train, or airplane, you can still maintain healthy eating habits while away from your house. By choosing balanced, nutritious snacks, you also guarantee more energy to enjoy your vacation.
Look at the options below and see what works for your budget and your family.
Car Trips
For car trips, make sure you don’t rely on fast food options, vending machines or gas station snacks. These may be convenient, but they are also loaded with sugar, salt, and saturated fats. Instead, snacks that you prepare and pack can ensure your family has healthy food choices and stays satisfied for longer car rides.
For these road trips, you can pack foods that fit easily in a Ziplock bag or in a cooler. Here are some options:
Bag: Applesauce, bag of veggie chips, containers of tuna, packets of unsalted nuts (like almonds, peanuts or cashews), homemade trail mix with dried fruit and cereal, peanut butter sandwiches on whole-grain bread, mini muffins, and granola bars are all great options too for treats on the long drive.
Cooler: Fresh veggies (such as baby carrots or mini cucumbers), fruits that don’t make a mess (bananas, apples, plums, apricots or grapes), yogurt tubes for easy clean-up, low-fat string cheese or cheese slices, and whole grain wraps with deli turkey or chicken.
Airports or Train Stations
If you’re traveling by train or on an airplane, you can find stores at terminals that offer both healthy food along with others that offer fast food. Something to remember is that at airports, the food may be more overpriced than usual.
For that reason, it makes more sense to prepare your snacks beforehand. You won’t be able to bring a cooler through airport security, but here is a list of items you may bring on your carry - on that don’t need to be refrigerated and can be placed in clear bags to pass through security:
Carry -on: Applesauce, bag of veggie chips or popcorn (low salt and no butter), containers of nuts, seeds, and dried fruits, dark chocolate chips, sandwiches on whole -grain bread, celery sticks, roasted chickpeas.
For any of these modes of travel, don’t forget to also have plenty of water for everyone you are traveling with. At the airport you can bring an empty water bottle and fill it up at water stations once you pass through TSA security checks.
SNAP Benefits
Don’t forget that all the food items mentioned here today are eligible for purchase through SNAP benefits.
In case you don’t know, SNAP stands for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and was formerly known as “food stamps.” In North Carolina, it is also called Food and Nutrition Services or FNS. SNAP is available for low-income families across the state and if you want to learn more about it, contact the More In my Basket team. They offer free SNAP application assistance in English, Spanish and Portuguese Monday through Friday, 8 am until 5 pm.
Contact the More In My Basket team toll free at 1-855-240-1451 or visit their website at morefood.org.
Source: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/the-best-travel-snacks-for-eating-on-the-road
