Shelf-Stable Travel Foods

Sometimes you simply HAVE to pack some foods in your luggage when travel - you will likely eat out a bit as well - which is what our interview with a Paleo Blogger module will help you with.

Out of the choices we have - here are the some of the best ones. And take courage- quite a number of the P3toLife ladies have had to travel quite a bit on P3 and using all these principles and foods like these, they have successfully stabilized just fine!

SHELF STABLE SNACKS TO TAKE ON TRIPS

• Epic Pork and Bacon Bites
• Macadamia Nuts
• Sea Snax
• Nick’s Sticks
• Pili Nuts

“Carby” non-carb “bready” snacks!

I’m so super stoked that I randomly came across these the other day while perusing my local grocery store- and you can buy them online.

Nush Food Snacks (organic)– they are basically little cakes, sweetened only with erythritol!

Flavors currently: Carrot Spice Cake, Lemon Poppyseed Cake, Cocoa Cake, Banana Nut Cake. I’ve had every flavor and they are ALL good. The only thing is I feel like they have just a HINT too much backing powder to them- like there’s a slight bitter aftertaste to them, but aside from that, I feel like it’s still worth it if you are traveling and on P3 because it’s an actual cakey-bready like texture thing you can eat that’s kind of sweet and desserty and comforty and ready to eat out of the package.

They all have either 2g or 3g of net carbs, and 150-170 calories and they are about the size of the palm of my hand. If you eat slow and take small bites it’s a real treat! You can order them online in packs of 12 as either one flavor or a mix of flavors. I like them all.

The other positive to these is that because they have flaxseed meal, they have good fiber, and will be filling and a nice complement to all the other mostly protein options.

 

OLIVE SNACKS:

OLoves Olives – snack pack of 12
Mario Snack Olives – pack of 12
Mario Snack BLACK Olives – pack of 12
Mario Snack GREEN Olives – pack of 12
Gaea Snack GREEN Olives- Lemon & Oregano flavor – pack of 8

Toasted Coconut “Chips” – no sugar added – pack of 2

JERKYS

note: even though there are lot more healthy jerky’s on the market made with things like grass-fed beef or bison or what not, many of them still have enough sugar in them that you want to be checking ingredient and nutrition labels before just buying one that has “GRASSFED” or “ALL NATURAL!” emblazoned on it. What I found is that within the same brand, some are better choices (fairly low in added sugar and a workable solution) than others with higher added sugar.

Epic Brand - these have 11-15g of protein.

1. Epic brand jerkys with NO added sugar:
   Venison bar – sea salt & pepper
   Chicken Siracha bar
   Uncured Bacon & Hickory Smoked Pork Bites – a few amazon reviews claimed not liking these but I tried some and thought they were delicious.

2. Epic jerkys with SMALL amount of sugar that I would personally consider P3 approved and safe:

Beef Apple Bacon bar – only “sugar” is small amount of apple (2g sugar per bar)- P3 approved.
Chicken Sesame & BBQ bar – 2g sugar content from golden raisins

Epic Jerkys possibly best avoided: Any of their flavors that show more like 5-10 grams of sugar (and there are several, so please do check) on the nutrition label is probably best saved for Phase 4- especially with these options above! Not all epics are as epically epic when it comes to sugar content 😉 hardy har har.

GRAZE Bars – grass fed jerky – no sugar whatsoever – pack of 12

Perky Jerky Wagyu Beef- Chimichurri flavor - this has NO msg, good ingredients. Does contain a little coconut sugar but small enough so as to be only 1g sugar per serving which is okay.

People’s Choice Beef Jerky - original, sugar-free - this is for a pack of 3 which is a good price, and they also have a 1 lb package which is definitely the better deal if you think you’ll eat enough of it, since the 3 pack is 7.5 oz total, vs 16  oz for just $7 more.

Caveman Foods Jerky - Buffalo Style - these seem to me like they cost an arm and a leg- however, there are 3 servings of 12g protein each- that’s really not enough for 1 meal, so I’d make 1 pouch at most 2 servings - in which case I guess that’s $6 for your meat for a meal which isn’t too terribly bad considering the constraints of travel. Also, this has msg too.

COFFEE

*Coffee Blocks: Bulletproof coffee… just add water, can take them through
TSA! No sugar!

Willpowder Heavy Cream Powder - yes I KNOW I said first 2 weeks no dairy but butter, but in small amounts it's probably totally fine- and I LOVE this powdered cream. I use it on every P2 recipe shoot day when I go somewhere else to shoot that doesn't have my half and half for my 2nd cup of black tea of the day. For travel I just transfer a little to a small plastic bag. Warning, it does not mix very easily and clumps, however I found that if the liquid is hot enough, and you stir vigorously like you're trying to get a bicep workout, it's not too bad, and in taste it certainly does the job, the flavor is lovely, so I don't mind a few clumps. It's a rather large container that can last quite awhile- what you might do is keep the rest in the freezer so it will last you a long time.

Hoosier Hill Farm Heavy Cream Powder - this one I have not tried, but is about half the cost of the one I put above.

Coconut milk powder

TO GET RID OF CLUMPS

If this little tool seems like it would work for whatever travel situation you are in, I LOVE milk frothers now! And this would be perfect for blending your coffee and heavy cream mix. They are small, lightweight, battery powered, and inexpensive. Many people use them for their bulletproof-type coffees.

Double Ring Milk Frother

PROTEIN BARS:

Here's a couple other options that seem better as far as ingredients go- maybe you could buy online and bring with you?

Julian Bakery is a brand I really like personally and they have multiple types of proteins to choose from in their bars:

Peganthin Bars - vegan protein powder w/ complete amino acid profile, sweetened with monk fruit, 20g protein per bar, 80 calories, and better ingredient profile

Paleo thin bars - egg white protein or grassfed-beef (seriously it's good, tastes nothing like beef promise), sweetened with stevia, good ingredient profile, 150-210 calories per bar depending on flavor, 20g protein

Primal thin bars - whey protein powder, sweetened with monk fruit, 130 calories or so.

When choosing, don't always just get the lowest calorie bar- for a snack this makes sense- but if you need it to be a full meal replacement, probably choose a higher calorie bar in this case to make sure you have enough to eat.

That said, I am still overall not personally fond of any bars as a frequent occurrence, and here’s why.

I find that these bars are pretty calorie dense, which means that for the small volume of food you get to eat, the calories are rather high. What happens then is that you don’t feel satiated/satisfied with what you ate, then you go looking to eat more food, and it becomes to overeat calories by the time your stomach feels satiated enough.

There is 1 bar that’s a phase 4 only bar that I LOVE- but guess what? Every time I eat one, I want to eat 3 more. And because they are made with pressed nuts and dried fruit, they are high calorie for their size  - if I eat 2-3 of these, I’ve already consumed like ⅓ or ½ the calories I can eat for the day. And I DO get myself in trouble with these. Anytime we have a box in the house, I find myself eating 2 at night for a bit and then I’m having to do correction days because the scale is inching up/

The other thing is that even though we might even get a bar that has great ingredients, most brands are a fairly processed product still. It’s still not really “real food”.

Buuutt as you said, sometimes circumstances like travel require you to make use of things like this, and that’s okay.

FOIL CHICKEN POUCHES W/MUSTARD

Foil pouches of chicken, with packets of mustard. These are quite tasty and will be more filling and is usually a food that doesn’t create those cravings to eat more.

• Valley Fresh - 12 pouches - natural, sea salt, no msg
• Members Mark Chicken (4 pouches, 7 oz each, no msg yay
• Starkist - Chicken Salad - 12 - (these are small so you’d probably need at least 2 for your protein serving).

A note about this: things like the chicken salad version mentioned above, if you look at the ingredients do have things like “sugar”, “modified food starch”,“rice starch” and the like, listed on the labels which are obviously starches/sugars. However that said, 1 serving which is 1 packet, has only .5 grams of sugar - 2 and you’re still only at 1 gram of sugar - this is ¼ tsp of sugar - so in my mind, this will not affect your maintenance and this is still a better choice than many other choices you might make while traveling.

2nd note: If you buy a different brand, please do check their ingredient label- some I saw had MSG/Autolyzed yeast extract, which if you can at all avoid, do!

TUNA?

I know many use tuna but I’m leery of tuna now because of the mercury content- it’s not something that’s wise to eat too frequently. I will still never know if the mercury toxicity I experience and had to do a special chelation protocol with my doctor to get rid of, was from my mercury fillings, or from the 8 week summer microbiology course where I ate a tuna sandwich every single day, as it was soon after this that I got my test results showing very very high mercury levels in my system. So be safe!

MUSTARD SINGLE SERVE PACKETS

Grey Poupon Dijon Mustard- pack of 25

French’s Classic Yellow Mustard - pack of 25

REUSABLE TRAVEL SPOON/CUTLERY

Titanium travel spork

Foldable stainless steel spoon and fork

ZIPLOCK BAGS

You can use these to put what’s left of your stinky chicken and mustard packets until you are near a garbage. 🙂

Gallon size

Quart Size

FABRIC WET BAGS

If you prefer not to use plastic bags, they do have some pretty nice "wet bags" that you can put your wet garbage in and then wash the bags when you return home. I first learned about these when we were cloth diapering. :)-

SPECIFIC PACKAGED FOODS I GET QUESTIONS ABOUT:

RX bars for P3?

I am frequently asked if something like an RX bar on P3 is okay- to give you an example:

An RX bar is really great as far ingredients go (all natural/whole foods type deal) HOWEVER, for instance the chocolate sea salt flavor – has 2 dates in it = 24 total carbs, 18 net carbs, 15g of which is considered “sugar” from the fructose in the dates.

To me, I feel this isn’t the best option in P3 and would personally stick with much lower carbs when eating something in a “bar” form – one main reason being the dried dates is going to be metabolized a lot faster than say, the same number of carbs that you might eat in a P3tolife recipe meal.

Make sure to prepare by doing your research ahead of time. Use Yelp and Facebook. Chat with the locals and fellow travelers online for their tips and suggestions.

Atkins Bars -