Eating healthy on the road

We tend to do a lot of traveling with the kids, especially around the holidays.  When we do it typically means there are a lot of hours in the car.  Our kids have become pretty great travelers.  Give them some paper & crayons, a few other things, and a snack and they’re good to go.

One thing I definitely took for granted before we were diagnosed with Celiac disease is the snacks we used to eat.  Our typical snacks before Celiac were crackers, goldfish crackers, pretzels, granola bars, etc.  All things that were processed and had gluten in them.  Going gluten free meant that we gave a lot of those snacks up and replaced them with healthier snacks.

Now our snacking looks quite different.  We take fresh fruit & vegetables (carrots, celery, etc), gluten free pretzels, cheese sticks, and Stonyfield Squeezers.  Those are our staples snacks and if we’re going to be in the car for longer than 2 hours or going to an amusement part, you can guarantee we will have those things with us.

By far, our kids like the Stonyfield Squeezers the best.  I know they love the taste and they love that they are fun to eat.  They are each particular about the flavor, too.  Rebecca’s favorite is lemonade, which she thinks is really lemonade made into yogurt.  Caroline loves blueberry and Kate claims strawberry, or any berry version.  Thank goodness, Stonyfield makes a variety pack!

We’ve recently discovered the YoKids! Squeeze pouches.  I prefer these to the Squeezers in the car because there’s less potential to be messy.  The girls’ only complaint is that Stonyfield hasn’t started putting their Banilla flavor in a Squeezer or Squeeze pouch yet.  When that happens, I will become poor.  They eat Stonyfield’s Banilla flavor a quart at a time.

A lot of people ask us how we take such healthy snacks on trips and keep them cold.  The answer is simple.  We keep them in a Pack-It Cool snack bag.  They stay cool for hours and we never have to worry about the Squeezers or cheese sticks spoiling or the fruit and vegetables going bad.

I guess in a way being diagnosed with Celiac disease was a blessing in disguise.  Our kids are eating much healthier than they were before.  I guess you can be thankful for small favors after all…

This is a photo of the girls eating Squeezers while we were at Walt Disney World.  They were our  snack every morning.

What do you pack as snacks when you are traveling?

xoxo
–k

*This link is an affiliate links.  What does that mean?  It means if you click on the link to purchase this product I get a few pennies for every dollar, at no additional cost to you.  Basically, in a year I’ll be able to take the girls out to ice cream.  😉

Disclosure: This post was created in partnership with Stonyfield. All opinions are my own.

Kristina Grum is a Certified Parent Educator who has over a decade of experience working with children, including being a classroom teacher. She currently teaches parenting classes in her local area and writes about shifting parenthood from barely surviving to thriving.