Thursday, March 26, 2009

Traveling with 23 food allergies

So we thought it would be fun to hit Boston while the hubby was in Hawaii, don't ask!! Yes, work related believe it or not, ha ha ha. Anyway, I prepped and prepped and prepped for a small getaway with the boys and my sister. I think it took longer to prepare and pack the foods than it did to get there (6 hour drive)!!! I found this great cooler/refrigerator designed for cars, you actually plug it into the outlet in the car, very cool!! I made as many things as I could that could be frozen, like mini turkey burgers, chicken sausage slices, chicken strips and packaged everything separately into little individual sized baggies, teff pancakes, I even made and froze buckwheat cereal and millet stir fries. I put those into Glad containers for easy single serve and go options. I also bagged up more individual meal-sized frozen veggies for easy defrosting and heating. I had to make sure the hotel would have a fridge and microwave, of course! So I packed it all up to go, along with many dried snacks like millet puffs and Nutty Flax cereals, freeze dried fruits which are great for snacking or adding to cereals, nuts, yellow raisins (red are high phenol) and I even brought fruit (and a knife and cutting board). I had a few small coolers for all day outings and I used a week-long, four pill-a-day organizer for supplements and enzymes. What is great about the organizer is that I can grab the "day" sized container and throw it into our cooler for easy dispursement. It was like packing for a small army, but I must say, the food part was probably the easiest part of our trip! Sleep was our biggest problem, or lack thereof, I wouldn't recommend all sleeping in one room with a baby, a preschooler and adults....not a good plan!! I would say that although it's a lot of work to plan for a trip, it's doable, if you are adventurous enough and have good help. Don't let the food planning hold you back! Before the trip, I even looked for gluten-free menu options at restaurants in the area and we were able to hit one of these. It was just as easy to bring our own foods, but also nice to have options to make him feel like everyone else. So if you are thinking about a weekend getaway, I say go for it!! More than a week and it might get complicated, but with a freezer available, it's probably just as easy as traveling for a few days, just a few more servings to pack up.

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