Inbox: Travel

Note: The May/June issue of our downloadable magazine, I Want To THRIVE! is packed with travel tips, articles and ideas.

Dear Erin,
 
I am amazed at the time you take to write me back and answer my questions: I am getting ready to order my yogourmet!  I have one more question now:  do you have any tips or advice when it comes to travelling?  We are planning a trip to take for spring break, the middle of March.  I am nervous about my special diet while away from home.  How do you manage?  I can't even imagine being able to eat out but how can I cook my veggies when I'm "on the road"?  Any help or suggestions you could give me would be so much appreciated!
 
It's perfectly fine if it takes a little while for you to get back to me.  Whenever it is do-able for you is great for me!
 
Thank you again for this amazing service you provide for people you don't even know.  Because of your website, I am feeling that I can really do this!  I am so grateful! EF
 
Hi EF,

Ok! I do have some time now... Sorry it took a week! Thanks for your encouraging words!
 
Travel can be done, but it does take some planning ahead. I have traveled many places - Hawaii twice, 20-hour road trips, cross-country road trips a few times each year.... all on the SCD.
 
Here are some travel ideas that may help:
 

• Food to bring in carry-on in a plane: dates stuffed with nuts, baby carrots, Lara Bars (legal flavors listed on the Prepared Foods section of the website), Cheese Lace (recipe in Snack section), frozen Easy Sandwich Bread (also in snack section), Laura Scudder's or Smucker's peanut butter (peanuts and salt only), and Nutty Caramel Candy or Sugar Plums (Dessert section). In checked baggage pack honey. Some Lipton Decaf, peppermint or spearmint tea bags are also nice to have on hand to use if you can find hot water. Small packets of honey are also great to flavor your tea – or for some quick sugar calories. (Whichever of these foods you're able to tolerate - the Sugar Plums and Lara Bars are probably too fibrous at the beginning of the diet...)
• Pack: Yogurt Maker with container, thermometer and starter packets,
• Eating out: I have found that Wendy’s meat is legal. There are no additives and they cook it in oil. I order a double stack, special order: just meat, lettuce and tomatoes; no bun, sauce or cheese. The Cracker Barrel restaurant is also a great choice when you’re on the road and they have locations across much of the country. I always order eggs, over well (to make sure they don’t add anything don’t order scrambled eggs), and bacon, crisply fried. Ask for hot water and supply your own legal tea bag if you wish. If you come across any Good Times fast food restaurants, I have just discovered these and they make a great beef hamburger...I ask for the All Natural Delux hamburger, with no bun, no sauce, and no cheese - just the meat and the vegetables in a box. I avoid the pickles which aren't legal but the lettuce, onion and tomato is fine.
• Tip: If you have some extra money and want to splurge on some yummy pre-made food for your trip you can order some cookies, jam, and other legal treats at www.DigestiveWellness.com. I ordered some cookies that didn’t require constant refrigeration for a trip to Hawaii and it was so fun to have some treats on hand so I really felt like I was on vacation!
• Quick snack ideas:
       - Cheddar Cheese slices with peanut butter and raisins on top.
       - Lara Bars (expensive but a quick filling snack in a pinch. See Prepared Products section of the website for legal flavors).
       - Dole Pineapple-Orange juice in small cans.
       - Dates with pecans inside (can be carried easily in a purse all day; make sure dates don't have sugar coating).
       - SCD yogurt with honey. Add fresh fruit and pecans on top, if desired.
       - Stretch Island Fruit Leather (legal flavors: grape, raspberry, apricot, blackberry).
       - Apple Chips with just apple and preservative like ascorbic acid (I found some with the Nature Valley brand at Walmart and Target, but I've been having trouble finding it lately. A health food store might have another brand. Just make sure there isn't anything but apple and preservative in it). Costco – Brothers all natural apple and pear crisps.
       - Target's Market Pantry unsweetened applesauce cups
       - North Coast brand apple sauce in large container (I found it at Sprout's but it may be at other health food stores as well. If not this brand, try any kind that has just apples and water. Ascorbic Acid is ok as well.)
       - Cheese Lace recipe from my website under Snacks section. This travels well, and is pretty fast to make. It's also a good "chip" with homemade guacamole or salsa.
       - Speckled bananas are also easy and fast energy.
       -Trader Joe's freeze dried mango and pineapple.
• When you arrive, you could have a shopping list with you for staple items to have on hand...For example: cheddar cheese, raisins, chicken breasts (Foster Farms or Sanderson Farms or other legal brand), a half-gallon of milk for making SCD Yogurt, Dannon Natural plain yogurt or Fage plain yogurt for SCD Yogurt starter (or the legal Yogourmet starter packets that you pack with you), speckled bananas, apples, oranges or any other fruit you like and can tolerate, some Tropicana OJ (original with no added calcium or Vitamin D) and/or Welch's 100% grape juice.
  
  
• If you are traveling by car and staying in hotels, try getting a hotel that has a kitchen in the room. For example, Marriott Residence Inn has kitchens in the room with a fridge, stove & oven, microwave and even a dishwasher.
  
  
• For cooking veggies on the road, you could do that at a hotel with a kitchen by boiling them in water and then packing them in a cooler for the day, or when you go out to a restaurant try to find one that will give you steamed veggies like carrots & broccoli (if you can tolerate...) steamed only with water, and no butter or spices added.

I actually wrote an article with all my tips and ideas for traveling that is in the May/June edition of "I Want to Thrive" and I am now including it in our Lifestyle Section...

I hope you have a great trip!

Greetings Erin,

I hope you and family are well:-) We are doing fairly well with our son. Many baby steps. But, over all we are very, very happy with the results of the diet.  I have been making the sour cream ( from dripping the whey out of the SCD yogurt) and the children love it:-)

I wanted to make a suggestion in regard to your recipes on the web site. First, thank you so much for having them there! I thought you might want to consider compiling your recipes into a book, even an e-book. It would be a great recipe book!

I would also like to know if you have ever encountered anyone who has a son in boy scouts? Our son, who is 15, is a boy scout and has this summer an upcoming 14 day high adventure camping trip in New Mexico. We are beside ourselves trying to figure out how he will be able to eat and not suffer. So, hoping for others who have some experience:-) I think we will have to make a lot of home made beef jerky;-)

Our son has some upcoming tests at the Mayo Clinic, but we will not depart from the SCD way of life:-)

Thank you once again and I hope you are enjoying the early beginnings of Spring:-)  MB

Hi MB,

Concerning your thoughts on putting together a cookbook, I wanted to let you know that each of our magazines is actually an e-cookbook, (in PDF format) with between 45-85 recipes per edition, depending on the issue. It was a wonderful two year project for me and I had so much fun finding, tweaking, cooking and photographing the recipes, plus creating the magazines.
 
I just have to tell you about  a mom with a son on the diet. Her son is in Scouts too, and they thought that his adventure days were over when he was diagnosed. In our September/October magazine, she wrote up the story of his 80 mile hike and how she did the food for him, and she includes some of her recipes. It's very inspiring! Take a look at her blog, where she provides recipes and tips for moms of adventurous kids on the SCD: http://myhoneypie66.blogspot.com/. There are also other articles in our September/October magazine related to kids on the diet that will probably interest you as well. As you look over the pages describing each magazine, you can see if the various themes of other editions would be of interest to you too. May/June is full of travel and camping ideas and would be helpful to an active family.
 
I'm glad you're committed to the SCD way of life. It will give a person their life back, and that's worth a lot!

Take care,
Robin  (Erin's mom)

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