Gluten-Free Road Trip
Maintaining my gluten and casein free diet while driving cross-country was actually tougher than I expected. We arrived in Asheville just over a week ago after a week-long road trip from San Francisco.
Despite days of unexpected car-maintenance, which rendered me unable to run most of my pre-trip errands as planned, I did manage to pick up some of Waylon's gluten and beef free raw dog food and a cooler to tote it in. I did not, however manage to pick up much in the way of gluten-free travel snacks for Taylor and I. We left San Fran with just corn chips and cereal, and not much else.
By the end of day two, we'd made it to west Texas, and were clear out of food. Something that might have been easier to handle if only rest stops weren't so scarce and meager. Looking back, there are things I could have done better in preparation, but also a few tricks I learned along the way. Here's how I survived our gluten-free cross-country journey:
- Do Your Research: Knowing which menu items were gluten-free at major fast food chains would have been a big help. I did look it up on my smartphone along the way, but knowing beforehand would have been a big help. A quick Gluten Free Fox search will lead you to articles like this one on Celiac.com, but be sure to navigate through to each restaurant's site and jot down a list of what you can eat for those times that you will inevitably be without service.
- Bring Your Own Food: Without time to go to Whole Foods for nutritious, travel-friendly foods and snacks, I settled for the little that we had. What I should have done was stock up even on less nutritious items that I could find easily at our corner store. One morning in west Texas it took several hours before we even came to a reasonably sized gas station. Corn tortillas, chips, nuts, jerky, any of it would have been helpful to have.
- Make the Best of It: Knowing what I could eat from a gas station became a diet-survival instinct. I had just read that Jack Links steak strips (original flavor) are gluten-free, and these were readily available at gas stations. I was thrilled when I began to notice prepackaged cold cuts at gas stops as well. Cold cuts, jerky, mustard and chips, it was not very healthy, but it kept us going. I did indulge in an occasional pack of Smarties (the U.S. sugary version), but for the most part large doses of sugar would have resulted in a crash, which would not have been very conducive to driving or staying awake to talk with Taylor.
- Expect the Worst: A quick stop in New Orleans left me just enough time to grab some more cold cuts, spicy mustard and tortilla chips. The smaller market store did not carry any chip brands that I knew were "safe," but Garden of Eatin' looked safe by the ingredient list. Hours later I was already in pain, and that night my skin had fully broken out. Fortunately I had a bottle of Gluten Ease and my 100% Pure Seafoam Cleanser. A few pills and couple of facial masks and fortunately, everything was back to normal in a couple of days.
Posted 6/23/09 by Kristen Campbell, co-founder of GlutenFreeFox.com (learn more about Kristen Campbell)
