Hello Beautiful!

It looks like you're new to The Community. If you'd like to get involved, click one of these buttons!

In this Discussion

Raw Travel

MopokeMopoke Raw Newbie

I’ve been raw since April and during that time have made several trips away from home. Each time, despite trying to focus on eating everything I need, I’ve returned with the ‘glow’ somewhat tarnished.

I would appreciate travel tips and advice on eating plans when travelling.
Policy so far: order fruit platter on planes and take on board ‘picnic’ tubs of salad and fresh fruit…this seems to be the best way to keep hydration levels up.
Once I arrive I have tried filling hotel fridges with leaves and avocado and soaking nuts but something just isn’t working…..

Comments

  • You should make some stuff ahead of time and bring it with you. Stuff you would look forward to eating [granola.. crackers.. pates/almond milk if you can.. any cookies or treats.. etc etc] so that when you do bring it all back to the hotel, you not only have a fridge full of awesome produce, but you also have lots of yummy raw treats to enjoy while you’re away from home! That would be my solution to the problem i think.

  • MopokeMopoke Raw Newbie

    Hi mango woman…looks like you went raw about the same time as I did :).
    I tried bringing very dehydrated essene bread rusks (a la elf journeybread!) on one trip but think that didn’t work because I may be sensitive to rye. The idea of filling the fridge with produce also works because going to local markets and shops is a good way to see the new place you find yourself in – but I still don’t feel as good when I travel :(. I am wondering if it is too much eating in restaurants – even if I am choosing salads.

  • ZaZa Raw Newbie

    Less is more. When you travel in cars, busses, trains, and planes (the worst) your poor body is being bombarded by all sorts of nasty chemicals and radiation that you’re probably not used to. Give it a chance to defend itself by eating as lightly as possible just before, during, and after travelling.

    When I travel I either fast (but drink oodles of water) or, if I’m going to be exerting myself a lot (lifting suitcases, instruments, walking around), I bring some juicy fruits with me, such as oranges or papayas or kiwis or apples. (They require the least amount of energy to digest).

  • elizabethhelizabethh Raw Newbie

    When I travel by plane, train, car etc., especially when i’m sitting for an extended period of time, i don’t eat anything, but simply buy a BIG (1.5 litre or so) bottle of water on the plane and drink it. i figure my body is under enough stress being so out of its normal, natural place (i.e. on the ground!), the last thing it wants to do is digest food.
    for when you actually arrive at your destination, it really depends where you are. i spent a month in ireland (land of beer, meat, and potatoes)100% raw, and pretty much lived off of cucumbers, apples, and bananas. somewhere warmer would be a lot easier. in any case, i would pack a few bags of soaked and dehydrated nuts in your suitcase, just in case!

  • I definitely agree with the fasting while flying or riding a bus/train… but as far as fasting while driving a long distance, i personally wouldn’t do that. I’d also not fast on my entire vacation either… [i’m not sure if that’s what you were saying you did or not Lovefoodlaughter…]

    I think really planning things out and being prepared will help tremendously. Good luck and this could remain a good thread for ideas and suggestions.. wooo!

  • elizabethhelizabethh Raw Newbie

    mango woman i agree about the driving! i meant travelling in a car for a long distance when somebody elese is driving LOL! (i don’t drive yet, but i imagine driving a car for a long period of time on an empty stomach isn’t safe)

  • MopokeMopoke Raw Newbie

    So interesting!
    Lovefoodlaughter I believe you are on the nail about ‘less is more’..... I read ayurvedics say it’s better not to eat when processing a lot of other stuff – be it geographical, physical or emotional. (I guess travel can be all 3?)
    And I agree about keeping it wet and very light whilst actually travelling (wouldn’t a fresh coconut water be fantastic with all those electrolytes!) – especially in planes.
    The Ireland information is really interesting elizabeth and Joyce….. When I have been away I have probably dropped down lots of notches from the 90% raw I usually keep to and have followed the salmon/salad style route rather than strict fruit (and added more alcohol)........the scarey thing is that I have now been home almost as long as I was away and I am still feeling bloated and heavy. (oh and I attacked my coconut and linseed oil when I got home like a ravenous ummmm raw food tyrannosaurus rex?)

  • MopokeMopoke Raw Newbie

    Joyce, I’m not a musician but what you describe sounds truly amazing and as if it nourished you on the deepest level in terms of both creativity and community.
    If you’re going to live longer (subjectively or otherwise) you may as well live richly so as to enjoy it while you’ve got it.
    This has given me food for thought on the whole concept of ‘travel’ and ‘eating’ and the fact that as we travel through life we are not just eating food but also experience (which has reminded me why I called my blog ‘eat life’.)
    There are supposed to be yogis in India who choose to eat only rubbish (and the rubbish in India must be pretty vile) just to show that – at a certain level of spirit – one can consciously purify whatever one ingests. I guess this is taking the whole food thing far beyond enzymes etc.
    Meanwhile back in the real world I know that I resonate more clearly with all that is good in life since I became a raw foodist and that furthermore my bizarrely hypersensitive digestive system likes it…. and part of the reason I like it so much is that it is all guilt free. I am now wondering if I ended up getting congested and ‘heavy’ when I travelled because I felt guilty every time I ate something that was cooked… I was in Bali and what I was eating would in normal terms be considered a brilliantly healthy diet…..
    Other mistakes were that I didn’t take any digestive enzymes with me… and there’s the possible lack of omega 3 oils?

  • heathermarsbombheathermarsbomb Raw Newbie

    Great stories, JocyeH! I really enjoyed reading them. Are you from Boston (Logan clued me?)

  • PamPam

    Mopoke, I find that if I take my Tribest personal blender and make smoothies, I feel pampered and well-hydrated on the road and it’s easier for me to maintain the glow. Sometimes just the act of trying to prepare food in a hotel room with no kitchen can generate some negative energy, at least for me. But smoothies are pretty easy… all you need is fruit. A hand-squeezed orange provides enough liquid to get the blade turning. I use a large, gourmet style lunchbag to store it in my suitcase (the Tribest comes with lots of attachments that I don’t use and a too-big travel case).

  • I’m glad to find this topic. I am a little worried about going to visit my son and his family in a few weeks. I guess I’ll have to eat fruits and veggies but I
    really don’t like eating non-organic produce. There isn’t a health food store in their area.

    I just can taste the difference and of course the thought ingesting the pesticides is chilling.

    I guess I will have to drag bags of produce on a two hour bus ride. I think I”ll take some raw almond butter to put on bananas. The thing I will miss the most are my raw mut milks that I buy in NYC. I use these for raw granola in the morning and as a pick me up during the day.

    Anyway, I’m open to suggestions and I’ll try to report back after the holidays.

  • MopokeMopoke Raw Newbie

    I love your travel plans Joyce – destinations and policy both sound great. What you say indicates real good sense.. and I think you are right about the body having the innate intelligence to come back to its ‘best’ level if given the opportunity.

    In proof: I felt so low after I got back from Bali, then read a very good but slightly cynical take on raw food at the Beyond Vegetarianism site and sort of lost heart a bit. Last Saturday I went out and had a complete raw regression – delicious crepes stuffed with spinach cheese, mushrooms and fresh tomatoes and onion at a market stall for lunch (ambrosia) and then out to a friend’s home for dinner – barbecued salmon followed by a store-bought chocolate mousse cake that was a wedge of cloud-like chocolate flavoured elegance on this kind of crunchy toffee biscuit base. I pigged out and had two serves and then a black coffee! (Oops and wine)
    Next morning I felt toxic – it was coming out from my underarms on my tongue – everywhere.
    But the great thing was that it was coming out! – I tongue scraped, rebounded, body brushed etc etc and within hours started to feel really really good.
    SO I guess the residual Bali stuff will work it’s way out too :) Thanks Joyce :)

  • MopokeMopoke Raw Newbie

    Pam I will look up the triblest on the web now…don’t know if they sell them in Ausralia. But I have been toying with the idea of travelling with my Bamix which may be the same kind of thing – a very strong kitchen wand that additionally plunges into a small mill attachment if you take its blade off..
    This morning I worked out a main change due to travel has been to my metabolism. Before I went away I was processing food like there was a little furnace inside – at every meal I was ravenous and I would get toey if there wasn’t enough greens to go with it (hadn’t discovered my taste for green smoothies until yesterday)..... that has still not come back to where it was. Any tips or superfoods that help with this?

  • MopokeMopoke Raw Newbie

    Thanks Joyce…. It was an OK slip but I am not tempted to make it full time ….that’s one of the things I love about this eating plan the way it makes you actually want the food that is good for you :)
    As far as travel goes maybe the best way to travel raw is to journey as lightly as possible and to on arrival keep to your truth as much as you can without being too neurotic about it. (And find the local source for organic leaves and fruit, and have a personal blender if poss :) .. oh and digestive enzymes in case you slip up) – Thanks everyone :)

  • pianissimapianissima Raw Newbie

    cucumbers are a favorite travel item for me, especially for plane travel where they confiscate your water and make you buy dasani! this last trip i had 2 entire cukes that i chomped on the whole way. i also bring baggies of celery, fennel and bok chok in my “lunch box”. these all have a lot of water in them, and i do better with them than fruit. —they also don’t spoil very quickly, so i have them when i arrive as well (this doesn’t work when you travel to a place like, say, sydney, where they spray the entire plane and make you get rid of ANYTHING living upon arrival)

    elizabethh- how cool that you made raw work in IRELAND! even before i was raw i would cringe to think what i would have to eat when i visited that part of the world (though i was in england, the diet is pretty similar). but the reality is, the focus shouldn’t be food. to make the best possible decision given the circumstances is to remain sane… if all there is is a banana, eat a banana. hardly punishment!

  • This is a great thread.
    Joyce thanks for sharing your stories & Mopoke thanks for those great things you had to add.
    I am musician too and I travel A LOT to places where it is very difficult to stay raw and most times I stay 6 months and sometimes I go from one to another and don’t come back to the States for 9 months to a year. And I DEFINITELY am not going to eat just salads for all that time!
    Although now I am back in LA and one block from Juliano’s Raw and I LOVE it here I DO miss Paris, Tokyo, Seoul, Barcelona etc. Never been to Ireland- would really love to.
    My last contract was 6 months in Tokyo and I managed to stay between 80% 100% raw the whole time I was there.
    It’s REALLY hard n Japan b/c they put pork & tofu in everything. They eat lots of noodles and white rice and fried things. They don’t like to modify things and plus, my Japanese is not so great so trying to explain what I wanted was often times the most difficult thing!I prepared lots of things in my apartment and I found 3 organic vegan cafes close to my apartment so I did some non-raw things there.

    I tried to focus on finding a balance so that I could hold to my principles and enjoy the culture , my work, the people and so that I was able to be social and not hole myself up in my apartment just so that I could control every little thing.

    I am going to Mumbai in January and that will be hard b/c I LOVE Indian food!!!

    Inaia

  • ZoeZoe Raw Newbie

    I found it hard to be raw when we went to California to get married a couple of years ago. You see here in the UK vegan food is dire, really, really bad. Just awful fake meat rubbish and ugh soya cheeze, nothing ready made that is edible really. And I have been cooked vegan for all of my adult life. So when we got to San Francisco, Humboldt and Mount Shasta all vegan/hippy/new age havens, there was all this amazing vegan cooked food well, it was what I had wanted for years and I just couldn’t keep my hands off it! Especially the vegan dim sum, and the vegan cakes, oh boy! ah well…next time I can think “Yup been there done that” and keep away from it all I hope!

  • Do you have a dehydrator? If you do, you could make energy bars ahead of time with nuts, dates, bananas and other supplements like spirulina. Personally, I don’t think I could fast while traveling. I need mental stamina.

  • Zoe – I live in this vegan/hippie/new age haven which is how I am tempted with cooked vegan food so much!! We also have some really good raw restaurants and an incredible farmer’s market so that helps. I will get back on track in January, I swear!!

    Travelling is hard for me. I have made attempts in the past to bring my own food to other homes, or to try and order just salads in restaurants, but some places are more difficult than others (like sporting events). In S.F. they have sushi and veggie dogs at the ballpark, and that is rare but still not raw.
    Sometimes, if everyone around me is eating something delicious/cooked while I am eating a carrot stick I feel deprived. So when I am home I stay raw, and when I travel I allow myself to enjoy cooked vegan food as part of the experience. I do feel weighed down once I get home, but that helps me get back on the raw track.

  • pianissimapianissima Raw Newbie

    renoir- about that,

    i sometimes read through these threads and find people bashing themselves for falling off the raw wagon. they refer to eating cheesecake, or binging on cookies or chips,etc. i think there are ways to integrate when necessary without compromising your health and well-being.

    i know this might be controversial here, but having a plate of lightly steamed veggies with a side of marinara sauce when a restaurant has nothing else to offer is fine with me on occasion. i don’t think it’s productive to say “well, i might as well eat a cheese plate and the whole bread basket since i’m “failing” anyway”. you know? there’s more to well-being than food anyway.

    i think raw is vital, but i can do without the added stress when traveling.

  • Renoir & Pianissima- I know what you mean- that’s why in Japan I ended a few times eating in the organic vegan cafes eating cooked- but it was always the healthiest I could possibly get my hands on.

    To me, it’s really important to find a balance. Sometimes I would go to the cafe bc I really needed to be around people instead of holed up alone in my apartment. Six months of singing 6 nights a week and spending almost my time alone wasn’t healthy- at all. It was better to go to the cafe and eat something that was vegan, organic and included cooked food that it would have been to be alone and isolated eating raw food in my apartment.

    Balance is the key to health & joy- in opinion at least.

  • MopokeMopoke Raw Newbie

    Cucumbers are a great idea to take on board aeroplanes!.
    I find that getting concentrated foods is easy but it’s the bulk of ‘wet’ vegetables and fruit that seem to go by the way … and now I have been back a while I really see that I was craving OILS!
    Cheers

  • ZaZa Raw Newbie

    Incidentally, I was in Dublin last summer and it absolutely blew my mind how many juice bars there were. Seriously, walking along the sidewalk I passed a pub, a shop, a pub, a juice-bar, a pub, a shop, a pub, a juice bar. Very promising. There was even a juice bar in the airport!!!! The first one I’ve ever seen though I’ve been craving one for years. Dublin!

    But, sure, if you’re not in Dublin, or LA, or NYC, and you’re far away from home, whatever you do, don’t stress about your diet! How depressing. Go out to a little cafe. Order a chammomile tea and a non-organic salad with lemon juice. Charm the waiter into bringing you whole fruits. Or go for the gaszpacho (with salt, yes…) Where there’s a will, there’s a way. There are always less-harmful exceptions you can make. And maybe you can handle a bigger exception. Or maybe, like me, you’re still recovering from pretty severe illness and you’d rather prioritize your health. Either way, don’t beat yourself up about the choices you make! Instead, buy a map, go window-shopping, ask some locals what fruits and veggies grow wherever you are, and enjoy your time away from home!

    I agree that it isn’t healthy to sequester yourself away just because you don’t want to eat restaurant food, but if it’s just about being around people, go out, order something cooked and simple, and—don’t eat it! There’s no law saying you have to eat what you pay for! What’s worse, “wasting” “food” or making yourself sick?

    Also: enzymes. My lifesavers. I have them on me when I travel so if I do end up eating something dubious, I won’t suffer as much from it. I highly recommend a lifetime’s supply of enzymes to all raw-foodists who travel or eat out!

  • sweetpeasweetpea Raw Newbie

    I think if I were travelling I would get fresh fruit where available and salads. I would take a blue green algae or spirulina powder that I can add to food. And I would make up dehydrated veggies before i left that I could add warm water to for soup. Also, a good supply of crackers and chewy bars.

  • Inaia, I am also going to India in January. I know you cannot take any of your own food through unfortunately. I dont know how I will do on only water for a few hours but we’ll see.

  • MopokeMopoke Raw Newbie

    I think pianissima’s idea of taking cucumbers on board aeroplanes is a great one Little Mango – won’t they let u do that on flights to India?
    Once u get there? I met a health nut friend now living in Mumbai when she was back on holidays and spoke to her about raw food. She felt it was completely impossible to be on a raw food diet in India because of the bugs everywhere and the contaminated water – she told me big hotels have to wash all their salad in bleach! (I know there are lots of online forums about the benefits of ingesting small quantities of hydrogen peroxide but i don’t know if this is what they use). After I thought about it and thought about the advice from my ayurvedic practitioner and acupuncturist NOT to eat raw food I realised that historically because of the lack of seasonal availability of fresh produce in those lands, and the amount of waterborne bugs, eating raw has always been potentially more dangerous to the health than eating fresh food minimally cooked.
    SO that entire fantastic range of spicey healthful indian cooking got invented….

Sign In or Register to comment.