Vacation & Travel Guide

For those of us who’ve made a complete lifestyle overhaul, going on vacation doesn’t give us permission to cheat.  Many of our vacations would be ruined if we chose to indulge more than once or twice, so here’s a little insight on how I made it work for our one-week vacation, just starting out on the Plant Paradox.

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Prep for Weeks

If I had been smart, I would have made an extra meal for an entire week, froze it, then thrown it all in a cooler on travel day. I am not smart (at least not this time), and I tried to make 4 large batch meals the day before we left, which didn’t happen (man did I try, though). I sobbed on the couch about how we never should have planned this stupid vacation, drank some wine, then made an executive decision to leave a day later than planned.

Back in business!

Packing List

Homemade & Baking Items:

• 2 batches blueberry muffins (cake recipe baked as muffins for 15 min at 350)
• 2 batches cooked and sealed cassava flour tortillas
• a quart jar of homemade salad dressing (olive oil + vinegar)
• almond butter
• extra-virgin olive oil and coconut oil
• baking soda and baking powder
• spices: curry powder, sea salt, pepper, basil
• coconut flour
• tigernut flour
• 2 bags chocolate chips
• 85% dark chocolate bars
• Lakanto golden sweetener
• instant coffee
• coconut milk
• mugs (for muffins)

Favorite Compliant Snacks:

• green plantain chips
• cassava chips
• popped sorghum
• sweet potato chips
• coconut flour tortilla chips
• Quest bars – maple waffle or pumpkin pie are the best
• seaweed snacks
• grass-fed beef jerky
• snack packs of olives
• large container of mixed nuts: walnuts, pistachios, and pecans

Cooler:

• two bags of baby carrots
• two packs of Wholly Guacamole mini cups
• portobello mushrooms
• two family packs of mixed greens
• 1 head of cauliflower
• 2 packs cauliflower rice
• 1 pack sweet potato noodles
• 2 packs shirataki noodles
• 2 batches Swiss chard fritters
• 2 batches Dijon salmon cakes
• French butter
• lunchmeat (for kid + husband)
• variety of non-cow milk cheeses
• pressure cooked kosher chicken
• cooked grass-fed ground beef
• three dozen pastured eggs

Get up to 50% this entire grocery list

–> Check out my complete lectin-free pantry checklist HERE.

Breakfast & Lunch

I brought the ingredients to make the same thing for breakfast every morning: mug muffins. I suggest picking a breakfast you don’t get tired of and making it every single morning on vacation. It takes the hassle of having to plan that first meal of the day, and it saves you from eating continental breakfast.

Lunch was salad every day with chopped up veggies over greens with nuts, guacamole, cheese, and the homemade dressing. If we were near a microwave, I heated up tortillas and made salad wraps or my family had lunchmeat sandwiches with veggies and guacamole. Nothing too complicated.

Eating Out

Here is an additional list of things I ate that were not on the planned menu:

• mahi
• salmon
• trout
• flounder
• shrimp
• crabs
• scallops
• whitefish
• lobster
• lots of vegetable side dishes
• red wine
• dark chocolate

You get the idea. Basically, every time we ate out–which was a lot because we’re on vacation and who the heck wants to cook–I tried to order whatever wild caught fish was on the menu with whatever compliant vegetable side they had. You can even request that the restaurant cook your food in olive oil. Lots of start-up restaurants are offering grass-fed, wild-caught, and unique vegetable options that didn’t used to be available. It was actually a pretty good strategy and I felt good most of the time.

And for dessert? Red wine and dark chocolate. Every day.

Need meal ideas?

Takeaway Tips

1. Make 2-3 big batch snacks ahead of time.

2. Buy lots of compliant snacks in case those prepared snacks get eaten in the first half of the week (likely to happen…it’s vacation).

3. Bring the ingredients to make the same thing for breakfast every morning. And make it.

4. Get family pack portions of mixed greens, several different salad toppings, and make a large jar of homemade vinaigrette, and have a salad for lunch every day.

5. When going out to eat, go for local, wild-caught seafood and a side of steamed greens or veggies cooked in olive oil.

6. Bring compliant treats–chocolate, red wine, homemade cookies–so you aren’t tempted to get any there.