I haven't posted in a while due to working on grad school and being on the road, but a few people have suggested some really worthwhile topics lately so I'm getting back into it. This one's about travel food; not what you eat at restaurants and cafes while travelling so much, just what to pack to save time and money while travelling.
Most of us have had the idea, while planning or in the middle of an adventure on a budget, that we'll "just buy some food at the supermarket to save on cash". It's a smart idea in principle, but speaking from experience, if done wrong it's not as effective a money-saving technique as it could be, and one may just end up running out of food, or being grumpy and wanting local food or takeout anyway. Here I've made a list of a few principles of choosing food for a trip that may help your budget and wellbeing.
1. Weight
Seems obvious, but there's not a lot of point picking out stuff that's cheap and nutritious if it takes up a lot of room in your pack, and/or weight in your baggage allowance. Obvious ways to circumvent this are not choosing foods with excess or heavy packaging, such as canned food, food in jars, things packed in brine or water for keeping (such as canned vegetables, chicken, or tuna, which as we know can yield as little as 50%ish of the canned weight in actual food)
2. Shelf stability
Don't choose things that need refrigeration, or which spoil quickly without it. This unfortunately rules out a lot of healthy stuff, like fresh fruit (who hasn't found a week old pear or banana smooshed at the bottom of their pack? ... No, just me?... awks).
3. Cooking requirements
Try not to pick foods which require cooking, especially not anything which requires a stovetop and extra equipment like pots and pans. This rules out a few staple foods like pasta. Although you may be staying at a place where you have access to these facilities, cooking takes time and effort that you might not have at the end of a long day, and which you certainly won't have in the middle of a day full of activities. I've also found that, when staying with other people (especially those you don't know well) this can mean one less thing to bug them about.
4. Nutritional density
Nutrient density refers to the amount or quality of nutrition per unit of volume and weight of your food. If you haven't come across this phrase before, you've probably at least heard of 'empty calories'; junk food with a lot of calories/kilojoules but no good balance of protein/fat/carbs, no vitamins and minerals, no fibre, etc. Carrying foods of a high nutritional density is important for keeping you feeling full in the short term (and therefore resisting the temptation to impulse buy expensive snacks), keeping your energy up, and keeping you from getting sick. Good examples are wholefood bars and well-formulated protein bars. Bad examples are foods where all the calories come from one source, such as crackers, which are high in carbs but have few other benefits for your body.
5. Cost
The cost of a good food for travelling should be weighed up against the aforementioned properties. For example, as I discovered on a recent long-haul flight where I wanted to avoid crappy plane/airport food, there's no point buying fancy organic mini protein bars if they cost nearly as much as a (reasonably) balanced takeout meal anyway (and are not as filling).
6. Familiarity
By this, I mean pick food that you've tried before, or that you would be open to eating. There's no point making a choice that is cheap, practical and nutritious if the idea of eating it regularly for the duration of your trip grosses you out so much that you decide to just pay for a meal instead. This might be a problem if you have a terrible diet on a day to day basis anyway, but just for example, if you've never tried a formulated meal replacement before, you might not be prepared for the texture or strong flavour.
7. Water requirement
When shopping for food, try to keep in mind how much water you will need to prepare it, or how much water you'll need to wash it down, or to keep yourself hydrated after eating it. For example, don't choose things that are high in salt and will leave you thirsty later, or things which require more water to cook than will eventually go into the content of the meal (this is where you can draw a line between, for example, dried food which requires reconstitution, and food which needs to be boiled). This is a practical issue on two fronts; the availability of clean and safe water wherever you are at the time, and the interruption to your activities to source drinking water later in the day.
So now you might be thinking, well what is there left that I can reasonably budget for? There are a number of good options, some requiring more forward planning than others:
- Laughing Cow cheeses are widely available, cheap, and do not require refrigeration. I'd had them before, but first discovered their true versatility on a trip to Vietnam, where they're very popular as a snack or a spread on bánh mì sandwiches. One 21g wedge of the original flavour contains two grams of protein and one gram of carbs to the four grams of fat, making it a comparably (if not perfectly) balanced choice.
- Dehydrated and freeze dried complete meals: A number of companies, such as Happy Camper and Mountain House sell complete meals (available online or in camping supply stores) that have been dehydrated or freeze dried and require only reconstitution. The pros of these foods are that they are light to carry, complex (you don't have to carry whole portions of many different ingredients just to make an interesting balanced meal), shelf stable, and end up as something at least resembling a meal you might have at home. The cons are that they can be a little expensive (a few dollars per serving) and that the finished texture can be kinda weird. There are ways to get around this for a little extra investment and time; you might consider a food dehydrator to prepare some meals and snacks yourself before you go.
- Balanced protein bars and meal replacement bars: If you're going for this option for at least some of your food, it's important to pick one that is good value (nutritionally) for money, and one that's designed as a balanced replacement, rather than a weight loss snack. Balance bars are a decent example, but if you ask a store person at your local wholefood store they should be able to help. Depending on where you shop you may be able to get a good discount on a bulk quantity of bars, however don't expect to eat these for all or even most of your meals; even with a variety of flavours and correct nutrition, they can get boring really fast.
- Muesli bars: So long as you don't pick a chocolate covered one, or one where the binder is something like pure glucose syrup, these can be a great portable breakfast.
- Ramen soup noodles (with bowl and cutlery included): These won't keep you full for very long, and you'll need access to water, but the pros are that all you need is clean boiled water, you can drink the soup, and they tend to be a pretty darn tasty comfort food.
- Trail mix: You can make your own trail mix with a blend of nuts, seeds and dried fruit. This way you're controlling the cost per serving of your snack, as well as the content. Google trail mix recipes for suggestions; personally, I like to include raw nuts, pepitas or sunflower seeds, and a dried fruit without added sugar (so, not those little squares of crystallised pawpaw or pineapple).
- Tortilla bread: This is a nutritionally debateable choice on its own, but it is compact, versatile, cheap and shelf stable, as well as often coming in resealable bags.
- Vacuum packed foods: Not as light as dehydrated or freeze dried food, but a good way to get something more substantial into your diet. An oft-cited example is Chinese sausage, which is high in salt and needs to be mixed with other things to create a real meal, but is cheap and tasty. Vegetarians and vegans can try various brands of tofu jerky, also from Asian supermarkets, for an equally tasty and usually cheaper protein hit- I like Towfu Cake which, despite the sketchy looking packaging, is good value at (my local store) less than $2 a pack and roughly 15-20% protein.
There are a huge number of variables that might affect your own pre-purchasing of food, such as time constraints, dietary needs, and destination, but hopefully these ideas provide a starting point for you to save some cash, to spend on the more important parts of your adventure.
