How To Eat Healthy (and Keep Your Food Fresh) on the Road

extra report and photos by Caroline Whatley .
Traveling in our van has led to some amazing experiences. Epic sunsets, some truly capital drag runs, meeting new people and way excessively many campfires to remember .
We love what we ’ re doing, but our mobile life sentence does present some challenges, one of which is maintaining a healthy diet of fresh food while traveling round. We ’ ve compiled some of our peak tips and tricks for eating healthy on the road .

Simple Is The Name of the Game

No one said you can ’ t have eight course meals when you ’ re on an adventure, but the logistics of doing so are enough to scare most people away. There ’ s the repositing aspect of it equally well as the train and cooking aspect, not to mention the hassle involved in killing.

When we travel, we tend to do a set of one pot fudge. A typical meal for us includes a vegetable, starch and a protein. Cook the one that takes the longest and add the rest accordingly. bare cooking doesn ’ t have to mean that it tastes bad or is unhealthy .

Get Groceries Often

Some vans and rigs have refrigerators in them. Ours is not one of them. It has a bed and some storage boxes a well as a board in it but it ’ randomness lacking a electric refrigerator. As a resultant role we find ourselves going to the grocery storehouse often ( more frequently than we ’ d like ) therefore that we can eat fresh, healthy food .
Though it takes a good moment of plan, it ’ s cheaper than eating in restaurants and healthier than eating debauched food. Our limiting factor is storage distance and the ability to keep things cool .

Get Yourself a Cooler

how to keep food fresh on the road We ’ ve been making do with a short Igloo cool that I borrowed from my rear ’ s garage over 15 years ago .
It no longer has a handle and is a short banged up from clayey practice but with ice in it, it ’ s good for keeping food cool for about 30 hours. Getting a cool is your inaugural footprint to maintaining a diet of healthy food while on the road .

Always Keep It Cool

We use a kind of methods to keep our food cool : ice packs, dry ice, frozen water bottles, freeze foods, etc .
Whatever you do, cool early and much. If you ’ rhenium actually on lead of things, put some cold ice packs into the empty cooler for about an hour to “ pre-treat ” it. That room it ’ second already conditioned when you put things into it. Another thing you can do to maximize the cool is to pack your cool full moon. It ’ ll keep everything cold longer. Do your best to keep your van and your cooler in the shade ( or in the air conditioning ) and keep it closed equally much as you can. Opening it and staring into it lets out precious cold air travel .

Learn How to Properly Pack It All

how to keep food fresh on the road Getting a cool and cooling it are good first base steps but if you truly want to elevate your newly food crippled, figure out how to pack it. Before exist in our van I used to equitable open the cool, throw some beers and food in it, pour some ice on top and go.

now I realize how important it is to actually have a scheme for keeping food cool because we ’ ll frequently need it to stay fresh for more than the good afternoon. No matter what cooler you ’ re using, over time ice always becomes water. As such, be mindful to keep things sealed besotted so that it doesn ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate become boggy. It won ’ t take you long to learn this once you experience it. Invest in a copulate of lock-tight containers and be certain to drain your cool every couple of hours .

Consider Dry Ice

No doubt you ’ ve used ice rink and ice packs in a cooler but if you can find some dry ice, give that a shot. It can be a little difficult to find but when you do, it can help you keep your food a fiddling fresher even longer than regular ice and frost packs. Keep in mind, however, that is has it ’ s drawbacks—it can hurt you if you ’ ra not careful. Always use gloves and let the ice ventilate because when it “ melts ” it turns to CO2 and can be very dangerous, specially in close quarters .

Get Creative

how to keep food fresh on the road When there ’ s a restrict come of outer space in your cooler, everything that goes in it needs to matter. sometimes we forgo icepacks and ice and choose rather for frozen water bottles that we can drink late or frozen fruit that we can eat by and by. Just remember that if you ’ re using freeze food to cool your cool, at some point it ’ south going to thaw. Make certain it ’ randomness double bagged or in a leak-proof container, and that you eat it before it loses it ’ s freshness .

Buy Food That Doesn’t Need Cooling

Pasta, dried fruits, canned foods, cereal, granola and bread are a vanlifer ’ south best ally. Why ? Because none of them need refrigeration. Which means they can be stored under your bed or under the seat ( wherever you have room ) and don ’ t take up precious distance in the cooler. Sounds like a no-brainer but by default, choosing foods that can deal with fluctuations in temperature is extremely helpful .

Carefully Plan Your Meals

how to keep food fresh on the road Though a life sentence on the road lends itself to whimsy, there is a good spot of planning that happens. We about always try to go into the grocery store store with a game plan. A failure to think about the future when it comes to your meals can mean having nothing to eat, wasted food and eat things that don ’ t go together ( gripe anserine and wine, anyone ? )
It ’ s a fine line, though, between micromanaging how you eat and thinking far enough ahead so that nothing goes to waste and you actually like what you ’ re corrode. We do our best to purchase foods that we can use for breakfast, lunch and dinner : cheese, tomatoes, avocado, tortilla, and rice, to name just a few. Lucky for us, we ’ ve yet to get pale of them .
With a little sting of planning and creativity it ’ s possible to eat healthy while on the road. Keeping food fresh can be unmanageable and a bite of a fuss, but in the end, it beats eating greasy burgers and french fries daily. For us, making sure we ’ rhenium feed quality food is one of the ways we keep our spirits high angstrom well as stay fueled for more adventures.


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Category : Healthy