school class trip...help!!

[malsprower]

im going on a field trip for a week and my dad won't buy me a dehyderater to make dry foods for the trip. I'm on a raw vegan diet and have no clue what to bring on this trip, i need help!! what foods should i bring, how much food, for a 2000 calorie diet for five days. where can i order cheap raw dried foods off the internet such as raw granola bars, cookies, crackers, etc?

[RawFoodGrl]

I got a brand new dehydrator cheap at a thrift store - brand new for $3.00. True, it's not the kind with a temperature control, but it works!!

Perhaps your dad will buy you a less expensive one like that?

For other options, you can certainly get a lot of raw food bars, flax seed bars, crackers, dehydrated fruits, along with raw nuts and seeds at any health food store.

Raw Revolution is my favorite raw food bar - perhaps you can order online.

Another option you can also get at health food stores are envelopes of shake mix. Nutiva has various hemp shakes you can get in single serving envelope. They travel well and are great!

How are the other kids eating? Is everyone bringing food or are you wanting to bring food to be sure you can stay with your raw lifestyle?

If everyone will be eating at restaurants, then there's a lot you can do there. I started a topic called Restaurants and Eating Out for some ideas about how to deal with these situations. I posted my own ideas, and I'm hoping other people will post some too.

You can use things like sheets of nori and lettuce to wrap veggies - I posted a Raw Sushi recipe here which is yummy and travels well. For a day, but it's an option. It's easy to carry nori with you, so you always have that as a wrap for things like tomato, avocado, alfalfa, cucumber and anything else you like.

[malsprower]

the trip is in NYC. mmmmmmmmm, nori and raw hummus...........mmmmm....... thank you sooooo much of the suggestions!!!!! to answer your questions the other kids eat a SAD diet....opposite of me, i know no healthy vegan..... and never met a raw foodist in person....i may pack my own food.... my teacher told me to.... i might end up having to eat some cooked foods there until i get better at this.

[jroo]

Originally Posted by malsprower

the trip is in NYC.

My guess is that NYC would be your best resource for finding raw food on the road.

Does your group have any free time when you first get there? See if you can get to a food co-op, health food store, or grocery store and stock up on anything that will keep at room temperature (apples, bananas, tomatoes, peppers, citrus, nuts). Then stick it all in a corner in your hotel room. You should be able to use Google Maps to find something near your hotel.

Use Google Maps again and find out if there are any raw restaurants that are nearby the restaurants your group will be eating at. Barring that, bring a small container of raw nut butter or homemade salad dressing to normal restaurants and just order the biggest salad you can get.

Here's a restaurant tip from Victoria Boutenko. Make several copies of the following on a note card and hand it to your server:

I EAT ONLY RAW, UNCOOKED FOODS

I would like a salad or vegetable plate with only fresh, uncooked items:

lettuce, tomato, avocado, carrot, zucchini, sprouts, cucumber, celery, broccoli, scallions, radish, onion, cauliflower, parsley, cabbage, kale, spinach, cilantro, bell pepper, beets, mushrooms, bok choy, arugula, chard.

Thank you for your creative effort. *

Of course, you should customize it to your favorite foods.

* Source: Boutenko, Victora. 12 Steps to Raw Foods: how to end your dependency on cooked food. Revised and expanded edition. Berkely, California: North Atlantic Books, 2007. p 167.

[jroo]

Originally Posted by jroo

where can i order cheap raw dried foods off the internet such as raw granola bars, cookies, crackers, etc?

While there may be better places to order from in the long run, for now you could buy a case of Larabars off of Amazon for about $1.14 per bar (that's not figuring shipping). The fruit & nut ones are raw. The chocolate ones are only mostly raw. Amazon also has the Raw Revolution bars.

[RawFoodGrl]

Go to www.happycow.com and you can find some health food stores (as well as restaurants) in NYC which might help - and there are green grocers everwhere.

I eat raw at SAD restaurants all the time. Take Denny's, not known for it 's raw fare. But reading the ingredients listed with other things, there's an egg scramble with onion, bell pepper, mushrooms, and tomatoes. A chicken sandwhich as avocado on it, as well as tomatoes and generally other-than-iceberg lettuce. Scope the side dishes, ask what the side veggies are, if it's not specific. I have found broccoli, zucchini and other summer squash, and spinach hidden amongst all the entrees. Even if it's not listed, ask!

So, you could certainly say you want the caesar salad (or any other salad), for instance, without the chicken, cheese or dressing, topped with the lettuce and tomatoes they use in their burgers, some avocado from the chicken sandwich and all the veggies in the vegi egg scramble, and any other tidbits of things like broccoli, zucchini, and spinach you can find, but all raw please. Then you can use salad dressing you bring, or simply squeeze lemon juice on it (if you have the avocado, you've got some good fats, and may not need dressing), or ask if they have olive oil.

The letter described above is much the same as the letter in the book I was referencing. I am updating my post under Restaurants and Eating Out to add the book's information.

Also, in terms of food dehydrators, you might try looking at www.craigslist.com or www.freecycle.com to find one that's really inexpensive. I know when we move up to the Excalibur, I want to give my current dehydrator to someone who could really appreciate and value it.

[RawFoodGrl]

After going out of town for a few days myself recently, I would HIGHLY recommend bringing a small cooler, like a lunch cooler or lunch tote, and bringing food from home.

I've seen some small soft-sided lunch totes that have a zippered bottom so you could put ice in there and keep it from your food, and also some backpack style ones (definitely what I would use, and am looking into getting for myself).

We had an easy time getting a cup of ice here and there, and I would next time bring zip-top baggies to hold the ice and catch drips. I would also double bag the ice so drips are minimized.

I would keep everything in bags, not hard sided containers, so you can fit things here and there, and maximize the space and what you could bring.

On our trip, whole tomatoes and avocados held up well, as did some leftover salad (we did have that in a hard-sided container), and dandelion. I would think broccoli florettes would hold up well, and lettuce and spinach for the most part too. Well, probably most veggies and fruit, since you're only talking 5 days. We were gone a total of 4 days, and things held up quite well.

I am updating my experience in the Restaurants thread, which also might have helpful information: http://www.rawfoodchat.com/forums/ra...-out-1191.html

[malsprower]

thank you so much for the suggestions this information is really helpful to me, i may use a cooler which is a great idea raw food girl. i also printed off the list that you gave me Jroo and gave it to my teacher, thank you very much. but i agree raw food girl, coolers work well, my mom uses them all the time when we go camping, i may use hers. the raw food diet is a bit of a struggle for me today, im having a hard time finding foods that will keep me full. i always feel so hungry. it is difficult to stay away from cooked pancakes and shaw's tortilla chips and salsa which i guiltily ate today. my dad is so angry at me for starting this diet. also he thinks i am spoiled because he has to make "special" trips every other week to buy me raw foods, and many times i run out of the fresh foods such as fruit and veggies so i have to live off of dry raw foods and that makes me crave "wet" cooked foods such as salsa and filling foods such as tortillas and pancakes. i try to eat as little food as possible to save my dads money and so that i dont run out of my raw foods so my dad doesnt have to go grocery shopping as much. i also really need a dehyderator so i can make raw tortillas. my dad is also mad at me because i eat a lot of fruits which he thinks are extremely expensive. sorry i feel really sad because i snacked on cooked foods.

[RawFoodGrl]

I'm glad we can help, but also sorry you are having such a struggle!

Don't feel bad about eating cooked foods. That happens to most of us. I had some twice this week, once by mental choice as we were eating at a fancy restaurant, another time by physical need because, during traveling, I got so nutritionally out of balance my body was screaming for beef, cheese and avocado. And a lot of people aren't 100% anyway. Lots of people stay around 70, 80, 90%.

Let's talk about how you can feel full and stay committed to raw.

I personally cannot ever feel full on fruit. In fact, most fruits make my blood sugar so wonky (a high from the sugar followed by a crash), I'm pretty, well, let's just say messed up, eating fruits. I wonder if you'd feel more full eating vegetables. (Although I did read someone say she puts avocado in her morning fruit smoothies as it helps keep her full through to lunch.)

I am finding I do very well on any kind of berry, with occasional citrus (not including the small amount of lemon or lime juice squeezed in for salad dressings), and do very poorly on bananas and grapes. (I'm not sure about the rest as I'm only starting my experiments.)

Most vegetables are pretty inexpensive. I eat a lot of salads, mostly different kinds of lettuce, spinach, celery, tomatoes, things like that. I feel pretty full from that. Now, we do need fats to feel full, so I do add avocado which is a bit expensive, as are nuts and seeds - but getting them in bulk reduces the overall cost, and then you don't need to eat that much each day.

Also, I was wondering if your family eats vegetables. If they do, it would be pretty easy to eat raw what they are eating cooked.

I'm also wondering if you could help them out by making the salads for dinner, for instance, a big salad for you, small side salads for them, or perhaps other veggies. If it's something for everyone, even if you steam up some broccoli for them, raw for you, perhaps it'll make it easier for your family.

Do you have a yard? We get a lot of our produce from our own garden. There are ways to make it very easy to maintain and grow a lot in a small space, and I'd be happy to talk about that with you - and you can get year-round produce, even in winter, with an inexpensive make-shift greenhouse.

Do you have a farmer's market nearby? That's a good way to get less expensive produce too.

I just wanted to say also that I do practically no dehydrated food, use very few prepackaged products, and nearly exclusively eat veggies, with a few nuts, seeds, oils, and even less fruit thrown in. I feel full every day, and while I ate a lot when I got started, I eat a lot less now - far less food than I ever ate before. (Where even doing raw I was about 1600 calories a day, I'm more like 1100 calories now, feel great, feel full, and am thriving.)

Frankly, I mostly eat leafy greens, and have heard (and now experienced) that one can feel supremely wonderful eating a lot of leafy greens (most people suggest at least 50% of the diet being a mix of leafy greens) and those are both yummy and inexpensive! Breakfast, lunch and dinner - a salad with leafy greens and some other veggies like tomatoes, broccoli, onions, bell pepper, etc., some salad dressing, a little bit of seeds, and I'm good to go!

(I do vary my salad types for variety, spinach & arugula for breakfast, kale, romaine, all kinds of other leafy greens & veggies for lunch, dandelion, romaine, parsley and pine nuts for dinner, each with a different salad dressing, that's my general day.)

FWIW, I read a book that talks about how to do warmed food without a dehydrator.