How to Maintain a Vegetarian Diet While Travelling
Are you a frequent traveler? Do you fall sick often, especially after your travel? Not able to find out what’s wrong? Then you definitely need to read on.
Most experts agree that most cases of travel sickness boil down to one thing – diet. It is understood that it is difficult to maintain and follow a diet during travel, especially when you constantly travel between time zones. This particularly becomes a problem when it comes to eating meat. You tend to eat processed meat and refrigerated poultry, as opposed to the fresh meat and chicken that you get at home. Some microbes grow exclusively on processed meat, and these can adversely affect your health. Additionally, you cannot ensure the sanitation of the places where the food is prepared. These two factors, in the long run, lead to poor health, and in the short term, leave you potentially vulnerable to traveler’s diarrhea.
Considering all this, it makes sense to restrict yourself to a vegetarian diet while traveling. Of course, that’s easier said than done. But fret not! We’re here to help you with that.
So here are a few tips to maintain a vegetarian diet while traveling:
Be disciplined
Any measure you take to keep yourself healthy first and foremost demands one thing of you – discipline. No matter how tempting the menus and food advertisements, and the accompanying images of delicious-looking meaty dishes, are, you need to stick to your guns – or rather, in this case, your vegetarian diet. All the other steps you take will be meaningless if you don’t follow this basic one.
Eat right
We actually don’t need a lot of food for our sustenance. Most of what we eat is to satisfy our taste buds. Try to restrict your eating to what your body needs, rather than what your taste buds crave. This will help you stay clear of unnecessary calories.
Get apps to help you find restaurants
You can use apps to find addresses, menus and customer reviews of the best vegetarian or vegan restaurants, or restaurants which have a substantial vegetarian menu, at your destination. This will enable you to enjoy the best vegetarian cuisine wherever you go – and should be enough to motivate you to stick to your diet.
Choose vegetarian-friendly destinations
If you have a choice when it comes to your destination, then choose a vegetarian-friendly destination. Some countries have no dearth of good vegetarian restaurants; while in others, it is near-impossible to find a restaurant that even serves vegetarian food. Also, what is considered to be ‘vegetarian’ food may vary across countries. Research your destination well before you finalize your travel plans, especially with regards to the local cuisine, and the availability of vegetarian options.
Check out the local cuisine
Following on from the point mentioned above, sometimes the local cuisine may include some great vegetarian diets. Dig a little deeper to find the vegetarian options in the country’s menus. If you visit Spain for instance, you need only peruse a restaurant’s menu a little carefully to find some nice local vegan options such as vegan tapas, gazpacho, and vegetable paella. Even in France, which is known for its beef delicacies, vegetarian foods like socca (made from chickpea) are very popular. This just goes to show that even countries famous for their meat-based dishes are also home to some great vegetarian foods.
Choose your place of stay carefully
When you choose your hotel or resort, don’t only use the cost, facilities and service as parameters. Examine their menus as well. Be sure to check with the management beforehand if there are an adequate number of vegetarian options on the hotel restaurant menu.
Go for a vegan tour
There are exclusive vegan tours. Such tours will focus on taking you to places where you can get some great vegetarian food. These are also package-tours that are custom-made for vegetarians. Taking these kinds of tours virtually guarantees that you will be able to maintain a great vegetarian diet.
Go for a vegan food fair
Sticking to a vegetarian diet can be a fun experience, if you go for a vegetarian or vegan food fair. Keep an eye out for these at your destination.
With a little effort and a little discipline, you should be able to stick to the veggies, have a safe, healthy and enjoyable trip.