Berkeley Parents Network: Kid Food on the Road

Berkeley Parents Network

Kid Food on the Road

Berkeley Parents Network > Advice > Going Places > Kid Food on the Road

How to eat healthy on the freeway?
See also: Surviving Long Car Trips

How to eat healthy on the freeway?

Oct 2007

We just came back from a 3 day trip to Tahoe, and had a great time. We had some difficulty feeding our 5 and 3 year olds heathy food. Every where we went, it was the usuall burger, fries, chicken nuggets, fried, processed, un-healthy food. We did pack some snacks and healthy morning cereals. We are planning a trip to Yosemite coming up in a few weeks, and I know we will encounter the same issue. Does any body have tips, tricks, suggestions for how to eat healthy on family trips ?

My best suggestion is to use a few less drive-through fast-food restaurants, and a few more sit-down places. Most sit-down restaurants (even someplace like Baker's Square) will substitute plain steamed vegetables for fries, or provide a fruit bowl. You can also usually order a grilled chicken breast, grilled fish, sauteed shrimp, beef or chicken fajitas, pasta, anything that's been sauteed or grilled instead of deep- fried.

When we do this, we just bite the bullet and order an adult meal for our son (an only child). You might consider ordering an adult meal and an extra plate, and split one meal between your two kids.

Another trick we have is to do ''veggie-for-fries'' substitution on two of our three meals, and split the remaining order of fries between the three of us. Nice, because we all get a few, but nobody feasts on nothing but fries.

If you do need to go to a fast food place, most chains now offer fruit cups and milk in kids' meals in place of fries and soda -- or, if your kid eats salad, that's a possibility too. If you get such a meal with a plain hamburger or hot dog, it's not great food, but better than all fried stuff. Karen

I always try to do as much research as possible ahead of time about where we will eat so I can avoid too much junk. A little junk is ok, and sometimes the fun part of the trip, but after 2 meals of that it loses it's value and you start to feel gross. Get an idea of where you might want to stop and what there is to eat in the area. I also rarely order kids meals - they are so unhealthy. And your portion is almost always enough to share! So, order healthy and share with the kids. michelle

we pack a small cooler (?10 qt) and a cardboard box. the 2 fit one in front of the other in the unused backseat behind the driver (toddler/6yo in the other two seats). the box holds a serrated paring knife (a bit safer, and kept at the bottom of the box) bread, crackers, trailmix, apples, oranges, bananas, envelopes of instant oatmeal/grits (we use the coffee maker in the motel to make hot water, or use an immersion heater, and pack a coffee mug and bowl/spoons), ramen cups, etc. whatever's handy when i'm packing, or i remember to buy. the cooler might have cream cheese, yogurt, hard boiled eggs, hummus, leftovers that don't need heating (like pasta salad), cold cuts, avocado, baby carrots, fruit that needs cooling (nectarines, grapes, berries, plums, pears, cut up melon, persimmons... whatever's in season). we sometimes find a deli and get sandwiches if we didn't bring cold cuts, and get some potato salad or tabouli or whatever looks good. we also hit the prepared food ''buffet'' of upscale grocery stores, and get soup, salad, roasted chicken, mac-n-cheese, etc. once for a late (9:30pm) meal we happened to be in a motel with a microwave, so i got several frozen dinners: curried chicken, chinese rice plate, mexican beans/rice, and we ate smorgasboard style.

on longer trips just hit the grocery store when necessary to restock. ~skip the restaurants.

Hi- One thing I do for car trips is bring a bunch of healthy food. When possible, we stop at parks for a break to eat and also run around. However, my kids (4, 7) and husband love fast food so there's always a pull to do that. I counter by feeding the kids and myself healthy food (in the car or at a park stop) first whenever I can, so that if we do go for fast food they usually don't eat much of it and it's more like a ''treat'' than anything.

Other than that, the routes we take frequently I've tried to scope out decent, healthy, fast, kid friendly places to eat and we make a point to stop at those. But going somewhere new that's harder. - Happy traveler

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