USA road trip - help with meal planning

food
(Ronel) #1

Hi

My husband and I are doing a 3 week road trip down the West Coast of the USA. We’re flying into Seattle and driving down to San Diego. I’m nervous because we’re going to spend a lot of time in small towns, which I assume will be less keto friendly.

Most places we’ll be staying outside the big cities include a kitchenette, so we can do some food prep but obviously don’t want to have to cook every night.

My thinking is that we could buy an electric cooler box and fill it with lunch foods and microwave meals in the cities. That way we aren’t dependent on whatever roadway diner or random restaurants we find. Also, I want to buy some good olive oil and balsamic vinegar, so at worst I can order a salad and make my own dressing. Am I overthinking this??

Any suggestions on good keto friendly products or restaurants (in Seattle, San Francisco or San Diego) would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much!
Ronel

(Joey) #2

Most “American-style” restaurant meals - even burger joints - can be made keto friendly without much trouble. Don’t eat the buns or fries, and look for salads without the dressing (add your own or just oil+vinegar) and you’re pretty much home free. Eggs and bacon, ham, steak - just toss the toast and home fries.

Convenience stores typically sell deli meats, cheeses, beef sticks (read carb content carefully), even hard boiled eggs. These are all “good to go” in the car.

Basically, most any sandwich works, again just toss the bread aside. And a large number of restaurants will now put the sandwich fixings on a bed of lettuce, call it a lettuce wrap.

The larger challenge comes at Italian (pasta, pasta, pasta), Asian (rice + sugar), and Mexican (rice, tortillas, beans, etc.). You can still make things work at these locations, but you have to work a lot harder. Salads are your friends.

Safe travels - enjoy!

(Edith) #3

Hard boiled eggs are a good snack to bring. You can even shell them ahead of time. If you eat dairy, cheese is also a good snack. There are also already cooked meats you can get in the freezer section at the grocery store, and Atkins has frozen dinners.

And I agree with @SomeGuy. No bread, no fries, just meat and veggies is easy to do.

(KCKO, KCFO) #4

Just adding nuts are a good traveling snack food.

I agree, with the above about sticking with meats and salad veggies. Just beware of the salad dressings, most are based on oils that do you no favors. I personally just use vinegar on salads when I travel. Or if the restaurant has guacamole. that is a wonderful salad dressing.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #5

Diners and McDonald’s are easy to eat keto at; just get meat and salad, possibly adding vegetables and butter. Tell the waiter to hold the potatoes and the bread, avoid dishes that are principally pasta or grains. Many other burger chains (such as Five Guys, if they exist out west) are also good at accommodating a keto diet.

At fancier restaurants, things get trickier. A really fancy restaurant will provide you with food cooked any way you want, so it’s easy to order meat/poultry/fish and a salad and be fine. But certain chains are notorious for their carb-laden entrées, because carbs are a lot cheaper at wholesale prices than meats are. I also learned on these forums that you have to order “shell eggs” at IHOP, because otherwise they load up their scrambled eggs with pancake batter.

If you are afraid of getting hungry while driving, you can bring along some pre-cooked bacon (lots cheaper if you pre-cook it yourself!), some hardboiled eggs, some pork rinds, some pepperoni, and a good-sized wedge of aged cheese. These will stave off hunger pangs quite nicely. Moreover, little of that actually requires much, if any, refrigeration (we Americans are obsessed with putting stuff in the fridge that doesn’t need to be there). Even deli cold cuts can survive a day or two without refrigeration. (You’d be surprised.)

(Jane) #6

If there is a Chipotle’s you can order a burrito bowl with no rice and no beans and load it up with meat, cheese, sour cream and guacamole.

Small town diners are a bit trickier since most meals are cheap carbs. Bacon and fried eggs, meat salads (mix your own oil and vinegar and shouldn’t need refrigeration), hamburger steak hold-the-gravy, any sandwich and remove the bun.

Lots more options when traveling by car. When I fly on business I just make some concessions like use their dressing on salads. I don’t eat seed oils at home so a few times on the road is no big deal IMO.

(Ronel) #7

Guacamole as a salad dressing wouldn’t have occurred to me, thanks.

(Ronel) #8

Thanks for replying. Where can I buy the Atkins meals? Are they easily available or do I need to pre-order online?

(Ronel) #9

Thanks for the chipotle tip, that sounds yummy.

Do most places have olive oil and balsamic vinegar as standard to make my own salad dressing, or should I rather carry some with me? I’ll admit to being an olive oil snob, so if you have a good brand you can recommend, that would be great.

(Ronel) #10

Scrambled eggs with pancake batter?!?! That’s insane. Thanks for the warning, shell eggs it is.

(Jane) #11

I buy most of my olive oil from a specialty shop in Ft Worth. They sell oils and vinegars and you can sample them - very cool shop!

(Ronel) #12

That shop does sound awesome.

I’m seriously debating packing a bottle very carefully between my clothes :joy:

(Todd Allen) #13

I live in Chicago and when I travel to the west coast I often shop at Trader Joe’s mainly because it is a chain common to both. The stores are small compared to supermarkets but have a consistent decent selection of meats including some grass fed, cheeses, nuts, produce and frozen vegetables and prices are reasonable without needing to shop sales or have a membership card.

(Ronel) #14

Great tip, thanks. We’ll definitely stop by one.

(Jane) #15

Trader Joe’s should have keto mayo :+1:

(Edith) #16

Just in the freezer section at a regular grocery store. There are other frozen dinner manufacturers that also make low carb dinners. I don’t remember the brands. They are out there, though.

(Bob M) #17

One of the things you can do is use search tools. For instance “keto meals in San Fransisco” or “keto fast food” or “keto fast food WhereverIAm”. Something like this:

image
image.png788×820 71.7 KB

Or this:

image
image.png771×833 84.4 KB

When I go on vacation, I buy lunch/deli meat and cheese and other low carb stuff to eat, after I’ve eaten out. I don’t eat breakfast at home, but when I’m on vacation, breakfast out almost always has good options, though you have to pay for extra eggs and meat.

#18

I wouldn’t worry too much about offerings in small towns. I’m pretty much certain about the coast from San Francisco South, but I think will apply to most of Washington and Oregon. These towns are all tourist destinations and will have a pretty good selection of foods. They may be pricey.

However, certain regions are farming areas. There will probably be roadside stands with locally grown produce. We used to go to the Salinas area and buy shopping bags full of artichokes for $5. Long time ago but that was cheap even then. The costal areas tend to be cool, foggy mornings in the summer, so the local produce will be crops which like cool weather.

(GINA ) #19

I live on your route! Just off highway 1 about an hour south of San Francisco.

Around here, you are not going to find many (or any) restaurants that are specifically ‘keto’ but you will find a lot of ‘farm to table’ and organic real food restaurants if you look. Also lots of farmers markets and produce stands. Most towns of any size have a Trader Joe’s and/or a Whole Foods or other health food store. Plenty of good vinegar and oil choices there. California is olive growing country, so you can find local specialty oils in stores and farmers markets.

We do have 5 Guys out here, but even better is In-N-Out. You will want a “double-double protein and animal style” burger. Yum.

Atkins frozen meals are in regular grocery stores (Safeway, Savemart, and Nob Hill/Raleys are our big chains). I have tried them a time or two and they wil work in a pinch, but are not very tasty. Whole Foods usually has a salad and hot food bar with a pretty decent selection.

Are you driving down Highway 1 (aka the Pacific Coast Highway) in California? Be aware you will encounter hours-long stretches without towns of any size. There are a lot of people in CA, but it is big and a lot is still wild. Gas will be astronomically priced in these little places. Even more than the rest of the state, which is already eye-watering.

(Robin) #20

Lucky for you to live in such a beautiful part of the country. The redwoods are on my short bucket list. But I’m waiting for the current travel frenzy coupled with gas prices to settle down a bit.