One of the things all travellers share is a passion for food, we love talking about food, we love learning new recipes and we love eating.
But – although anyone can escape the rat-race there’s no getting around the fact we need to eat healthy foods if we’re to avoid getting sick.
But don’t worry – we’re definitely not the fun police and it IS possible to eat really well and not feel like you’re missing out.
How? We asked fun foodie & qualified Dietician/Nutritionist Caitlyn Henderson from ‘Healthy Lifestyles AU’ in Toowoomba, Qld what we should be doing.
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KAYE:
One of the things that all travellers share is a passion for food… talking about food, learning new recipes etc and we love eating too of course but although anyone can actually escape the rat race in a caravan or tent etc, there's no getting around the fact we all need to eat healthy foods if we're to avoid getting sick!
Oh and don't worry, we're definitely not the fun police and it is possible to eat really well and not feel like you're missing out especially while travelling. So how well?... we asked fun foodie Caitlyn Henderson from Healthy Lifestyles Australia what we should be eating.
BRIAN:
Well as you know, currently travelling full-time and it's a fairly confined space in a caravan.
You can only realistically travel with a limited amount of extra food. But some people prefer easy meals such as the fast food kind of stuff when they're travelling so they'll often go to a caravan park and say… “oh let's just go get pizza tonight or get this and that and many people we’ve come across will do that all the time, and that's their idea of eating while on the road.
So Caitlyn, what's kind of solution is there for perhaps getting quality meals while we're travelling?... Easy meals that don't take up too much space in the fridge?
CAITLYN:
Well yes… there are many many options and I guess it depends on where you're travelling to, so for instance if you're going way way into central Australia or the middle of nowhere you've got less and less options for fresh produce that's in good condition basically.
But there are a heap of options including fast food restaurants as it happens and your pizza restaurants… without naming names!
And yes there’s those greasy ones but they've all generally got some kind of a healthy alternative you know like even the ‘golden arches’ tends to have things like a chicken salad on the menu so you can certainly make healthier choices even from those food outlets.
It's just all about having a bit of a plan and knowing what foods are on those menus because sometimes they're hidden in the corner of the menu or they're not advertised because they're not the um… most appealing to many people.
But definitely searching out which foods are on the menu that contain some kind of vegetable or some kind of salad that isn't … you know… deep fried etc and most places will have them.
KAYE:
One thing we have noticed speaking of let's call it takeaway meals or even easy meals that you are cooking yourself in the caravan or whatever we've noticed quite a few restaurants particularly Asian Chinese style restaurants is that they’ll often have gluten-free options and they tend to be sort of catering for more people with celiac food sensitivity.
CAITLYN:
Yes and low carb meals so celiacs who are travelling or you know buying food out do know – or should – that there's a bit of a difference between celiac disease and your gluten intolerance. Celiac disease is an autoimmune condition - if you've got celiac disease whenever you eat gluten the body does not respond well so it flares up and it detects the small intestine absorption points and does damage to the small intestine so having celiac disease, you have to be very careful and very cautious.
In fact even some places that will say low gluten or gluten free you kind of have to use your judgment of how accurate that is because there can be cross-contamination and even the smallest crumb essentially of a gluten or wheat food contaminating a gluten-free food can be enough to cause a flare-up in the gut.
So people with celiac disease need to be very mindful and cautious and always double checking the preparation of that food that they've ordered, whereas gluten intolerance doesn't necessarily mean there's damage being done to the small intestine but you might not react as well, so people might get a bit of bloating or bowel movements might be affected but it's not as important as celiac disease.
Of course it’s always best to check with your GP and they'll usually do a blood test and may follow it up with a colonoscopy endoscopy to see if they can see any damage to the small intestine.
So that's generally how they will diagnose celiac disease. Of course if you are not diagnosed with celiac disease but you think you might have some kind of intolerance, dietitians do help with a lot of IBS or irritable bowel syndrome which might be a bit of an intolerance to wheat, but it could also be a number of other foods in the diet so we can help identify which foods and which food groups may be causing your symptoms & to help improve those symptoms.
KAYE:
It's complicated!! It's much more complicated than I ever thought!
BRIAN:
Alright Caitlyn, thank you again… So much great information for our listeners! (Thanks/bye)
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