road trip Archives - Eat Out Eat Well

Eating While You Drive Can Be Tricky

Have you ever tried to eat a sandwich with lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise, and pickles? It’s hard enough to do when you can eat over a plate on a stable table – trying to eat it in a car means ending up holding two pieces of bread with a lap full of pickles and tomatoes.

Road trip food should meet certain “save your clothes and car” requirements:

It won’t fall apart, isn’t sticky or slimy, isn’t juicy/watery, and won’t break into a million little pieces when you try to eat it
It fits into a cooler (remember ice packs) or doesn’t need to be refrigerated
It’s reasonably healthy and tasty
It’s grab and go –you don’t need a knife, fork, or spoon to eat it (unless you pull over and have your own picnic) and it doesn’t need to be assembled
It doesn’t stink – how long do you want to drive smelling of onions, garlic, or stinky cheese.
Remember napkins, moist towelettes, and something for garbage.

Road Trip Snacks That Are Easy To Eat

Grab and go food is the name of the game. It’s dangerous to be distracted while you’re driving, so if you can eat something that’s non-messy and easily held in one hand, the food distraction is minimized.

Candy bars and bags of chips are pretty easy to eat — especially if you don’t mind chocolate smears on you and your car, fingers stained orange from chips, and crumbs everywhere you look. But how do you feel after eating them? If that candy bar is going to make you feel drowsy or lousy, maybe something that’s a little more nutritious and packs some protein is a better idea.

Some Suggestions

This is by no means an extensive list – it is meant to get you to think about what fuels you and leaves you feeling energetic, not grumpy and tired.

Anything in a pita: Pick your favorite protein food and some not too slippery vegetables and pile them into a pita. Make sure you just create a pocket and don’t cut all the way through. The pocket and the texture of the pita hold the interior ingredients in nicely.

Cheese and crackers: Try some cheese sticks or the smaller easy open wax encased snack-sized cheeses (Baby Bel). Bread sticks and whole grain crackers pair well with cheese and fruit.

Grapes, cherry or grape tomatoes, baby carrots or any other hand held fruit or vegetables: Great road trip fruit and vegetables because they are bite-sized and not messy – with no residue. Apples and pears are easy handheld food, too, although you have leftover residue (easily solved with a garbage bag) and possible juice down the arm.

Nuts: tasty, nutritious, with some protein – and easy to eat one by one. Pairs well with some dried fruit and/or cheese.

Peanut butter (or almond or sunflower butter) and jelly sandwiches: choose dense bread that won’t get soggy. Sandwich the jelly between the nut butter – spread the nut butter on both pieces of bread and put the jelly inside so it’s less likely to ooze out.

Jerky: High in protein, comes in single serve portions, and easy to eat while you’re driving.

Leftover pizza, grilled chicken, or other meat.

Already peeled hard-boiled eggs.

Whole grain cereal with crunch: combine it with some dried fruit and/or nuts and you have your own trail.

Granola or protein bars: they come in lots of flavors and textures – just read the label, especially the grams of protein to make sure you’re not eating a candy bar in disguise.

Popcorn: check the label for added ingredients, but popcorn can be a great crunchy snack that’s not a caloric disaster (unless it has a lot of added fat and sugar).

If You Hit the Vending Machines for a Snack or Two …

It’s almost inevitable that sooner or later you’ll have your next sharing moment with a vending machine: you share your money and the machine shares its calories.

When you’re tempted to kick a vending machine when it’s swallowed your money with no food in return – be gentle — they actually have a holy history!

Around 215 BC the mathematician Hero invented a vending device that accepted bronze coins to dispense holy water. Vending didn’t really became economically viable until 1888 when the Adams Gum Company put gum machines on New York City’s elevated train platforms. You got a piece of Tutti-Frutti gum for a penny.

Now they’re everywhere: in your hotel, in train stations, and just about every rest stop. They call your name when you’re especially vulnerable: you’re stressed, tired, bored, and your blood sugar is traveling south—all of which means the sweet, fatty, and salty junk food behind those glass windows is all the more alluring.

When a vending machine calls your name, choose wisely. There are good, better, and best choices to be made.

Even Though Your Options Aren’t Perfect, Make The Best Choice For You

Try to pick something with some protein. Too much sugar will spike then crash your blood sugar making you cranky, drowsy, and hungry for more sweet and fatty food. Not good for driving or for the other passengers in the car.
You can almost always find packages of nuts, or popcorn, or pretzels, or dried fruit.
Your choice depends on what you want: protein or sweet satisfaction, fill-you-up fiber or salty crunch.

Common Vending Machine Choices

Crunchy

Baked Lays Potato Chips: 130 calories, 2 grams of fat, 26 grams of carbs, 2 grams of protein

Baked Doritos, Nacho Cheese: 170 calories, 5 grams of fat, 29 grams of carbs, 3 grams of protein

Cheez-It Baked Snack Crackers: 180 calories, 9 grams of fat, 20 grams carbs, 4 grams of protein

Ruffles Potato Chips: 240 calories, 15 grams of fat, 23 grams of carbs, 3 grams of protein. 12 Ruffles potato chips have 160 calories, 10g fat

Cheetos, Crunchy: 150 calories, 10 grams of fat, 13 grams of carbs, 2 grams of protein

Fritos (28g, about 32 chips): 160 calories, 10g fat

Sun Chips Original: 210 calories, 10 grams of fat, 28 grams of carbs, 3 grams of protein

Snyder’s of Hanover Mini Pretzels: 160 calories, no fat, 35 grams of carbs, 4 grams of protein.

Rold Gold Pretzel sticks (28g, 48 pretzels): 100 calories, 0g fat

White Cheddar Cheese Popcorn, Smartfood: 120 calories, 8 grams of fat, 11 grams of carbs, 2 grams of protein

Nuts/Seeds

Planters Sunflower Kernels: 290 calories, 25 grams of fat, 9 grams of carbs, 11 grams of protein

Planters Salted Peanuts: 290 calories, 25 grams of fat, 8 grams of carbs, 13 grams of protein

Planter’s Dry Roasted Peanuts, one ounce: 170 calories, 14g fat, 2g sugars

Blue Diamond Almonds, one ounce: 170 calories, 14g fat 0 sugars

Planter’s Nut & Chocolate Trail Mix, one ounce: 160 calories, 10g fat, 13g sugars

Cookies/Pastry/Bars

Mini Chips Ahoy: 270 calories, 13 grams of fat, 38 grams of carbs, 3 grams of protein

Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tarts (2 pastries): 410 calories, 10 grams of fat, 75 grams of carbs, 4 grams of protein

Hostess Fruit Pie, apple: 470 calories, 20 grams of fat, 70 grams of carbs, 4 grams of protein

Fig Newtons: 200 calories, 4 grams of fat, 40 grams of carbs, 2 grams of protein

Quaker Chewy Low-Fat Granola Bar, Chocolate Chunk: 90 calories, 2 grams of fat, 19 grams of carbs, 1 gram of protein

Nature Valley Granola Bar, Crunchy Oats and Honey (2 bars): 190 calories, 6 grams of fat, 29 grams of carbs, 4 grams of protein

Candy

Skittles: 240 calories, 2.5 grams of fat, 56 grams of carbs, no protein

Twix (2 cookies): 250 calories, 12 grams of fat, 34 grams of carbs, 2 grams of protein

3 Musketeers, king size: 200 calories, 6 grams of fat, 36 grams of carbs, 1 gram of protein

Peanut M&Ms: 250 calories, 13 grams of fat, 30 grams of carbs, 5 grams of protein

Snickers, regular size: 250 calories, 12 grams of fat, 33 grams of carbs, 4 grams of protein

Is there a road trip in your future?

The Summer issue of Eat Out Eat Well Magazine is ready to help you eat well when you’re in the car or grabbing some food at rest stops or roadside diners.

Get it now from iTunes or the Google Play Store for $1.99 an issue or $4.99 for a yearly subscription (four seasonal issues).

How many ketchup drips, chocolate smears, coffee stains, and random crumbs do you have in your car (or on your clothes)?

Is your road trip to the shore or mountains or the big game an endless fest of fast food, junk food, and all kinds of snacks with your dashboard or vacant passenger seat as your table?

If you’re nodding your head, you’re a dashboard diner. It’s way too easy to indulge your dashboard dining gremlin with fast food and doughnut shop drive-thrus and gas station mini-marts with canisters of regular, decaf, dark velvet, and hazelnut coffee along with baked goods so your coffee doesn’t get lonely.

What is it about mini-mart and rest stop food? It seems to touch that primal urge to eat sweet and/or salty stuff that’s probably loaded with calories and lacking in nutrition.

The Trap And The Danger

Once you’re inside, there’s an endless stream of high carb, high fat, high calorie, and processed food is just begging you to plunk down your money so you can immediately indulge (watch how many people start eating the food they’ve bought before they even pay) or to take with you.

The real danger – aside from the damage to your waistline – is that high-carb processed foods spike then crash your blood sugar —making you really tired and cranky.

Drowsy drivers are most definitely not safe drivers.
Cranky drivers make life miserable for everyone in the car – not a great tone to set if you’re going on vacation.

Some Mini-Mart And Rest-Stop “Gotchas”

Candy is an impulse purchase; 49 percent of shoppers admit to unplanned purchases of candy. It seems that we want to treat ourselves and candy is an affordable luxury.

Check out the placement of candy the next time you’re in a mini-mart or convenience store — it’s positioned to grab your attention. Vividly colored wrappers reach out to you from high-traffic areas of the store: the checkout area, the aisle that leads to the check out, and on the way to the restrooms.

Know that your senses are going to be assaulted and have a plan for what you will and will not buy. If you’ve decided you want M&Ms go straight to them and don’t get sidetracked by a new kind of chips, or seasonal displays, or the latest and greatest deal on a king-sized package of some kind of candy.

Coffee, unlike candy, coffee isn’t an impulse purchase. Nearly 96% of customers intend to buy a cup of coffee before they walk in. Here’s the impulse buy: stores put candy, baked goods, and chips—near the coffee to entice you to buy them. As a man standing in line at a popular gas station mini-mart muttered, “I stop here for coffee every morning and I’ve gained 20 pounds since they put in the Krispy Kreme donut display between the door and the cash register.”

Some Helpful Tips

Nuts have protein and crunch, won’t cause swings in your blood sugar, and are almost always stocked. Tread a little gently — nuts aren’t low in calories. For a one-ounce serving of nuts you might find at rest stops: 49 shelled pistachios, 162 calories; 23 almonds, 169 calories; 18 cashews, 163 calories; 19 pecans, 201 calories; 10-12 macadamias, 203 calories; 39 peanuts (technically a legume), dry roasted, 170 calories

Some mini-marts have fruit (bonus: oranges and bananas come in their own natural wrapper and don’t have to be washed) and almost all have dried fruit — but balance the higher sugar content of the dried fruit with the fat and protein in the nuts.

Sometimes you can find individual bowls of whole grain cereals, although check labels because some cereals are loaded with sugar. To go with it, grab a small container of low-fat milk or a container of yogurt.

Protein bars can be good, better, and best. Check the labels for higher protein and lower sugar. Some can be the equivalent of a candy bar and are so large (with so many calories) that they are made to be meal replacements. A protein bar for a snack should be around 150 calories. Meal replacement bars have around 300 calories or more. Look for at least 15 grams of protein.

If you’re really hungry, choose a sandwich or burrito over donuts, pastry, and cookies. Check out how fresh it is, though. What’s appealing early in the morning when the shelves are first stocked might not be so appealing at 10PM if it has been sitting around all day and lots of people have picked up the sandwich, squeezed it, and put it back again.

Beef jerky or beef sticks (or nuggets) are good, portable protein snacks. A one-ounce serving usually has around 80 calories and 5 grams of fat or less.

A hard-boiled egg is a good choice, too. Just make sure it’s been refrigerated and hasn’t been sitting around for a couple of days!

If you must go with crunchy stuff, stick with popcorn, pretzels, soy crisps, or baked or popped chips in single-serve bags to keep portions in check. Sometimes bags might look small, but still contain multiple servings. Remember that the salty stuff will make you thirsty so stock up on water. There’s something to be said for snacks that take time to eat one by one when you’re driving.

Remember to drink water. People sometimes confuse thirst with hunger, so you can end up eating extra calories when a glass of water is really all you needed. If plain water doesn’t cut it, try drinking flavored still or sparkling water. We need water for fluids such as tears, sweat, and urine, and to allow chemical processes to take place in the body. Dehydration can cause fatigue and there’s some evidence that even mild dehydration can slow metabolism and drain your energy.

road trip

What Are Good Road Trip Snacks?