How to eat well during a traveling vacation

Road-trip by car, van, motorhome or motorbike, backpacking trip… A multitude of possibilities exist to get off the beaten track and enjoy traveling vacations. Only, apart from the question of material, there is that of food. How to eat well when you do not have an oven or microwave, or even a refrigerator or hotplates? Update with the dietician nutritionist Hélène Lemaire.

How to prepare your traveling holidays from a nutritional point of view?

First, we must take stock of the equipment we have. Refrigerator, means of cooking, table, cutlery, utensils such as a blender, or even a grater… You have to go through everything. Then, we must adapt: ​​in general, the food will be predominantly raw and bought at the last moment, in case we do not have a refrigerator. It is advisable to be very careful in the conservation of food in order not to poison; eggs are the only fresh products that can be kept at room temperature.

How to adapt your usual recipes?

You can replace preparations such as grated carrots or cucumber salads with raw pieces. Rather than making dressing, you can dip the vegetables in tapenade, guacamole or pre-prepared hummus. Be careful, however: some buy carrots already cut, in bags, which is not necessarily very good. As they are preserved, they have lost a lot of vitamins and minerals. In addition, they are more expensive, it is better to favor a fresh carrot that will be cut.

Whatever recipes we adapt, we will opt for raw and healthy foods that we will prepare simply, with very little or no cooking. The advantage is that we keep all the vitamins and minerals. Then, not cooking your fruits and vegetables is not a problem, especially in the summer heat, especially since it is good to take advantage of being itinerant to taste all the fruits of summer.

What foods to choose so as not to have deficiencies?

If you have a small stove, you can cook pasta and rice, even potatoes. If necessary, to avoid having deficiencies due to the absence of starches, it is necessary to consume complex sugars, which will provide starch. Thus, it is better to buy leguminous grains, such as chickpeas and lentils, which can be taken in jars. There are also sachets of quinoa and lentils that you can eat cold, in salads, if you do not have a microwave.

Supplemented with vegetables and fruits for vitamins, minerals, trace elements, antioxidants and fibers, this constitutes the major vegetable part of our diet. In terms of proteins, if you cannot cook food, it will be difficult to eat eggs. However, you can buy ham, but be careful to choose it organic or nitrite-free. There is also cold meat cut into pieces, and the possibility of buying roast free-range chicken.

For fish, you can take cans of tuna, sardines, or even mackerel. It is also possible to opt for shrimp, sold in sachets, but you have to be careful to eat them quickly if you do not have a refrigerator. Conversely, cheese does not need to be kept cool. We can add to this list the fat normally found in oil, replacing it with olives, almonds or hazelnuts.

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