last june, my son and i drove from albuquerque to massachusetts for an extended family visit… then back again. we camped along the way. it was quite the adventure. so many miles covered… and lessons learned.
as the de facto doctor in our family (not an M.D., but just shy of a few decades into a career in the wellness field), i set the foundation for our health by treating food as medicine.
this works wonders. there’s an Ayurvedic proverb i love and think about often: “when diet is wrong, medicine is of no use. when diet is correct, medicine is of no need.”
so for our 5 day, 4 night road trip out east, i wanted to have simple, nourishing food to sustain us and keep us feeling as great as possible through the travels. not to mention boost our resilience to any… you know… stray pathogens hanging around.
the standard american diet ~ i.e.: what i would have found had i sought our meals from fast food joints and gas stations and truck stops and even standard-issue grocery stores in the middle of nowhere ~ is decidedly not there to help you feel as great as possible. to put it mildly. in short, it is an assault on the natural intelligence of our organism. it sends inflammation levels in the body through the roof. and it sets us up for chronic, degenerative disease, actively eroding the integrity of our immune system. that’s a hard pass for me.
but it was 100% guaranteed that i’d be finding little else on the road, unless i went seriously out of my way for it, which i had neither the bandwidth nor the time for.
so i made a strategic travel menu.
i had plenty to do to get ready. i was super excited. it felt like an epic adventure ahead, and i wanted not just to get us there safely, but enjoy the journey. on the whole i actually felt pretty organized about the whole thing.
but in the week leading up to our departure, i started veering closer than i like into the realm of anxiety ~ not a place i usually find myself. being single-handedly responsible for the safety and well-being of myself and my then 9-year old son as we traversed through a dozen states and a handful of campgrounds and lots of… well… unknowns… was no small thing to have on the mind.
i truly love cooking and i often feel grounded by spending time in the kitchen if i’m verging on overwhelm, so it was a no-brainer for me to get a few things lined up in the days before we left. but not too many things, because i could see my potential to get a little obsessive under the guise of “calming myself by cooking,” and “making sure we had enough!” …and not too many days before, because fresh food is full of prana and old food, it turns out, isn’t. which kind of defeats the purpose.
we got a cooler that actually plugs into the car, a phenomenal invention that really and truly saved the day for us out there in middle america.
my goal was: simple and relatively hassle-free, but also delicious and nutritious.
so here’s what i ended up making/ procuring ahead of our departure:
- a fresh batch of sesame date oat cakes
- an (amazing) batch of sun-dried tomato jam
- guacamole
- a bunch of sprouts, freshly hatched from my kitchen
- a half a loaf of delicious sourdough bread
- a jar of pinto beans
- a bit of fantastically flavorful new mexican red chile
- peanut butter & jelly (of course)
- some fruit, some snap peas
- oats
- milk
- crackers, some pasta & ramen
- various teas
- and obviously, a ton of water.
i also brought ccf tea, which just looks like a handful of seeds.
“ccf” is a traditional Ayurvedic blend of equal parts cumin, coriander and fennel seeds. this is fantastically supportive of the digestion, gently cleansing, and cooling to boot. it’s often taken between meals during a cleanse. and i’ve grown to love it, any time of the year. having this on hand was probably one of the best decisions i made on that trip.
every morning i made myself a big thermos of this simple tea.
which is to say, i threw a bunch of the seeds in the bottom of a tall insulated canteen, filled it up with boiling water, and put the lid on. i sipped on it throughout the day, and nibbled on the seeds when i got to the bottom. a super delicious bonus treat.
this process became a non-negotiable part of my early morning ritual before breaking down camp and hitting the road each day. it made a huge difference in how i felt through those long days of travel. and heat.
the first few days, we had amazing sandwiches with sundried tomato jam, guacamole, and sprouts for lunch. it was sweltering pretty much wherever we went, so i’d seek out any shade i could find ~ under a tree at a rest stop, somewhere on a patch of dirt in the middle of nowhere. i’d shake out an old tablecloth and we’d sit there with our incredible spread… and bamboo travel utensil kits and cloth napkins.
you’d better believe we got some looks.
and, though we stopped for bathroom breaks, and fuel, and water, after a few days, we NEVER had to stop for food.
seeing the array of packaged items when we ventured into gas stations to use their facilities was actually pretty surreal. all that plastic, those over the top colors and packaging, all the preservative-laden nonsense… knowing that i had sprouts in the cooler, and fresh peas, and sesame date oat bars, and ccf tea to get back to.
somewhere in iowa near Amish country my son spied some animal crackers at a gas station and he was pretty excited about them. so we picked up a bag. the ingredients were not super impressive, but there were a lot worse options in there and they were actually made locally. so i took it in stride. all part of the adventure.
on the right: Ohio. The Great Serpent Mound, a prehistoric effigy mound.
a few months prior, i’d given up coffee during a seasonal cleanse. and after the cleanse i never picked it back up again. so this cross-country journey involved not a single cup of coffee (!!!). i did enjoy tea ~ black tea, and matcha. but i notably never got any of this from an outside establishment. i didn’t use a single to-go cup. in addition to the ccf tea, i’d make a delicious beverage for myself in the morning, and often again on our lunchtime stops with the little camping stove.
but i did bring a hand-held frother with me, and my matcha whisk and little bowl for preparing it. matcha lattes to go, camping-style! perhaps this may have seemed or felt a little frivolous. but it was ultra-satisfying to prepare myself a cup of this wonderful green goodness to enjoy as we eased ourselves back onto the road each day.
in the morning, wherever we were, the birds would always wake me up and i’d emerge from the tent into the relative cool of the early morning while my son still slept.
though it looked a little different, my first movements of the day maintained the same rhythm as at home.
i scraped my tongue, boiled water, and sat quietly, meditating, communing with the nature around me and the dawning of a new day.
i’d start off by drinking a cup of hot water ~ this happens every day for me, no matter where i am or what is going on. then as my son was stirring, i began getting some food ready for him.
and i’d make my thermos of ccf for the day, my matcha for the road, then get on with packing everything up and away, taking in the peaceful surroundings, enjoying being able to move my body around freely before getting back behind the wheel.
as we covered more ground, i found nourishment and grounding in these simple but powerful morning routines. in the hydration and medicine from the ccf tea that was reliably situated by my side, hour after hour. and in the rhythm of taking midday breaks for those phenomenal roadside picnics along the way.
could you benefit from a simple morning routine that can sustain and ground you during times of transition, travel, and through the ups and downs of everyday life? do you want to transform your relationship with nourishment, feel more supported by your own habits, and learn how to use food as your medicine?
schedule a free session with me here. i’d love to spend time hearing what your big goals and challenges with me. and i’ll share how i can help.
