Eating on the Road

I am one of those crazy people who is always on the go. Whether for work, charity or personal reasons, I am on the road a lot. I go here, I go there. The truth is it's not very often that I'm at home for more than a couple of consecutive hours.

That means that eating healthy can be a bit of a challenge. Drive-thru fast food is cheap and easy. Sit-down restaurants take time and money. But nothing worth having comes easily. And if I want to be healthy, and I want to pass along good health to my daughter, I can't create a regular habit of feeding McFood to her or allowing her to watch me eat it.

So what's a busy mom to do? Well, a busy, motivated mom like myself has to plan ahead. I think the cheapest, easiest solution to pack food and snacks from home when I know we're going to be gone around meal times. It's not always practical, but it's ideal. Here's some of the snacks that work for us:

• Fresh fruit (apples, citrus)
• Crackers (we like the gluten-free ones from Crunchmaster and Mary's Gone Crackers)
• Pouches of fruit puree (Lily calls them "squeezers")
• Dried fruit (dates, raisins, apricots, apples, cranberries)
• Sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds
• Dry cereal
• Nuts (cashews, almonds, walnuts)
• Homemade muffins or granola bars
• Veggie sticks

When it's not possible to pack food for the road, then the planning goes into finding an eatery or restaurant worthy of the time and money required. Here are some of our favorites:

• Chipotle
• Baja Fresh
• Freebirds
• Panera Bread
• Nearest supermarket (grab something ready to eat from the deli), Whole Foods or Trader Joe's
• Jamba Juice
• Starbucks (Lily loves the protein bento box)

Where do you eat when you're on the go? How do you stick with your preferred eating routine when away from home?