Road Tripping & Traveling on SCD

Recently I took 2 separate 12 hour each way round-trips to Florida. That is 48 hours in a car within two weeks, which adds up to 8 meals and 9 snacks. I stayed three nights in a hotel, and a whole lot more nights in an in-process renovation house with concrete floor and no refrigerator. At the current moment I can only eat completely cooked fruits and vegetables. Needless to say, I learned a few tricks about traveling while on the SCD. Here are 10 tricks & rules to abide by:


1. Bring a cooler if possible. (and bring a gas grill too like this one.)

2. If staying at a hotel, ask for a room with a mini-fridge and a microwave.

3. Make tons of yogurt ahead of time. You want to have enough to eat everyday while you are gone and at least two days worth for when you get back home, that will give you enough time to make more.

4. Know where the grocery store is located.

5. If traveling by car know before you leave all of your meals for the next two days at least. Cook enough food for the day of travel and store it in your cooler, have at least breakfast and lunch for the next day pack too, in case you can't get to a grocery store or place to cook food by the next day.

6. Have plenty of "snack-y" foods on hand. Things like whole nuts, pickles, olives, SCD Crackers, applesauce, dried fruits, cheese slices, SCD cookies, etc.

7. Freeze your leftovers at home before you leave so when you come back, dead tired, and need a vacation from your vacation you don't immediately walk in your home, know your refrigerator is empty, and have to worry about what to eat because you are starving.

8. Cook simple foods and implement condiments like SCD legal hot sauce and mustard. I cannot tell you how many days in a row I ate chicken 2 to 3 times a day but mixing and matching condiments made it tolerable.

9. If you will not have easy access to a stove or an oven, bring a camping grill along with a small propane tank and grill away!

10. Please don't forget your eating utensils and dishes, disposable ones work great while away from home, so even when you are eating in the car the last think on your mind will be dish soap or finding where on Route 66 to find a fork.

I survived off of the following for a meal plan in the car:

Brought a 16-can capacity Igloo cooler and sat it next to me along with a bottle of local honey. I packed one Gladware container full of yogurt, one Gladware container full of cooked chicken tenders and a few pieces of cold, cooked broccoli next to the chicken, one baggy of legal pickles, one Gladware container full of cooked fruits, a Ziploc bag with 3 to 4 cookies in it, and a small Ziploc bag of dried fruits like prunes. For breakfast I woke up early enough to cook myself eggs, although I had the option to bring boiled eggs in the cooler I just don't like boiled eggs. Then for a 10 o'clock snack I would eat either fruit or yogurt, then lunch time I would eat chicken and pickles or cold veg and mustard (if I had room in the cooler for condiments), then for a 3 o'clock snack I would eat a cookie or two, then for dinner I would eat the other half of my container of chicken and another pickle, then for a 6 o'clock snack I would eat yogurt or fruit again. If I was still hungry I still had a few cookies and pickles to chose from or some dried fruit. It is not the most glamorous days worth of eating but it kept me full and didn't taste half-bad at all. I was very anxious before the initial road trip but after doing it 4 times in two weeks I feel very comfortable with eating and traveling. Even the smallest tasks can seem overwhelming when you are on such a strict diet, knowing what one mess-up can make you feel like. But hopefully these tips can help someone else not be so nervous as well.