Travel Lunchboxes

Long-time readers will remember the lunchbox series – starting rather randomly and initially only meant to last a week, then a month – eventually a year and some later, I retired the lunchbox series, mainly because I was starting to get serious about working out in the morning, which eventually succeeded.  Ultimately, I traded one morning practice (photographing my lunchbox and blogging it) for another (working out or going to yoga). One thing I did not completely retire, though, was travel lunchboxes – I always pack a lunchbox and snacks when travelling.  While gluten-free and vegan options have been steadily.  Included in this post are two lunchboxes from when I went to Switzerland in November. 

I always try to pack lots of water-rich foods to help with dehydration. For the outgoing trip, I packed collard wraps with curry hummus from Appetite for Reduction and red pepper slices, along with a sliced apple (I love this approach – you cut the apple and then use a rubber band to hold it together including the core – the apple never gets brown that way), sliced red pepper, steamed broccoli and Gena’s Walnut Carob Cinnamon cookies which she was kind enough to gift me some the day I was leaving for my trip.  This lunchbox was perfect, as it was an evening flight, so I had dinner and enough cookies for dessert and then a snack later in the flight, prior to then arriving at 7am in Switzerland (which is 1am here, hence why I think of the flight as a long evening flight).

The return trip from Switzerland is actually longer – and it is a daytime flight, which means somehow it feels like it goes on forever and I get hungry, at least half of the time out of boredom. Seriously, every time I fly to Switzerland to see my parents, I think “you know, this is such a quick trip, I should go more often” and then on the way back, it does not matter how many books are on the Kindle or how many magazines I have with me, or other entertainment, I find myself bored and starving every minute of the trip. Anyways, so I packed more food for the trip back: hummus, quinoa salad with red peppers atop greens, baked tofu, and some of my Mom’s chocolate banana chickpea flour almond flour biscuits (which are not sweet, at all, and this is coming from me, who routinely makes stevia-only desserts).  This is all to say, they are perfectly decent cookies, but I bring some dark chocolate to go with them:

As well as additional snacks, since what is only a 9 hour flight ends up feeling like it takes forever.  That said, it is all worth it, because I know that I have safe foods to eat that are definitely gluten-free and vegan.  While airport selection has been better in that I have seen more gluten-free and/or vegan products, I still prefer to pack produce-rich meals, which I find really help my energy level while a I travel.