Travel Eats: My Plate Recap While Eating On The Go
I had fun last week traveling to San Francisco to visit the home of Clif bar. They invited a group of dietitians out for their annual “RD Summit” to educate us on their product line and how they run their company. They are a pretty impressive organization to say the least, and I can see why many of their employees don’t ever leave after landing a job at Clif. The perks are pretty amazing. My favorite benefits are the in-house day care, the dog-friendly offices, and their commitment to the health and wellness of their employees.
A few highlights of my trip were getting to tour San Francisco via bicycle for a scavenger hunt on Friday morning (so fun!) — and our amazing RD team winning first place!
I also got to make my own Clif bars with fellow RD and friend Vicky Retelny and enjoy some delicious food and camaraderie with fellow RDs.
I tried to document my eating adventures while I was there, but the whole “keeping track of my meals” thing is not that easy to do, especially when traveling. Many times I remembered to snap the photograph after I was halfway through my meal, or worse, finished with it! And since I was traveling on Wednesday, I didn’t get to post What I Ate Wednesday from last week. So instead I recorded how I ate while on-the-road, something that I get asked about ALL THE TIME. Indeed, travel-eating is a stickler for many of my clients. My philosophy for eating away is pretty much the same for eating at home: plan and choose. Here goes.
Travel day: my morning started early enough that I didn’t make time for breakfast. I normally would have grabbed some peanut butter toast, but instead I opted for coffee and a hard-boiled egg and then just through a few goodies into my purse to eat on the plane.
Definitely a fan of finger food, I grabbed an entire pint of fresh blackberries and a bag of Sunshine vegetable chips from Nature Box.
When I arrived in San Francisco, I needed a little boost so I tested out Oprah’s new iced chai latte from Starbucks for the cab ride to the hotel.
Once I got to the hotel, I went for a walk to check out the area. When I returned, I rummaged through my Clif bar swag bag for a Mojo bar. I met a friend for dinner that evening and ordered a shrimp salad and had a few pieces of bread before the meal. I also had about a glass and a half of wine with dinner. Unfortunately I ate my entire meal without taking one pic. I totally forgot!
Breakfast the next morning was at the cafeteria at the Clif offices and I chose some big beautiful berries along with a slice of olive bread and some scrambled eggs.
We tested Clif bars all morning after breakfast so I wasn’t terribly hungry for lunch, but I ate anyway. It was catered and I chose the salmon salad and veggies. I didn’t eat the quinoa patty.
Dinner that evening was out again at The Central Kitchen. I had a few fun veggie apps and my vegetarian entree was potatoes with artichokes. There was wine, too. Dessert was an amazing layered chocolate pudding concoction that was really one of the best I’ve ever eaten. I joyfully ate every ounce of it!
The next morning we had breakfast before our fun scavenger trip. I had a bowl of yogurt with fruit and coffee. Yes, forgot the pic again (it was early). After biking around the city all morning, my team and I shared a bowl of luscious ice cream from Humphry Slocombe. Lunch was a salad with portobello mushrooms, which I didn’t finish because I was full from the ice cream (and I forgot to photograph…again).
When I arrived at the airport to head home that afternoon, I had a ton of healthy and delicious-looking options to choose from. San Francisco airport is amazingly healthy! This deli offered two different kale salads, curry cauliflower with carrots, Brazilian quinoa, beet salad, and couscous with beets. Pretty sad if you compare it to just about any other airport I’ve traveled through. Unfortunately, I wasn’t hungry so I just got a chai tea.
So these are the real-life chronicles of my two day travel-eating adventure. My best advice for eating on the go is to eat as you would as if you were home (aka, eat “as if”). Make sure to go into eating situations with a plan: perusing all your options first and then consciously decide what you’ll eat. Don’t get side-tracked by foods that look good but that you would normally never eat at home. And if you do decide to indulge a little in some fun local cuisine, that’s okay, just get back to normal eating the next chance you get. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the food and culture of a city without feeling guilty or stuffing yourself, just be selective!
Disclosure: Clif bar paid for my trip to San Francisco, but opinions here are all mine.
