Real Food University

I spent two of my last three weeks on the road, flying back and forth from Philadelphia for some training for work. I also did a 1.5 year stint as a traveling consultant – out on Monday, back on Thursday – so I developed some strategies for mitigating the damage that eating out constantly can do. As we all know, the road can be a treacherous place when it comes to eating well, especially when on business. Dietary habits seem to be the first thing to go when you get away from home.

Lucky for me, my training classes were 9-5 Monday through Friday and then I was free to go my own way. But for those traveling for business meetings and conferences, luck usually isn’t so strong. For consultants on a project at the client site, you have 10-hour-plus workdays in an office full of candy and occasional pizza or other catered foods, followed by someone’s bright idea to grab dinner and a drink. And it’s hard to turn down the project manager, isn’t it? Besides, you have an expense account, so why not take advantage, right?

A few weeks ago, Greg showed us some decent choices at Canadian fast food joints (which mostly hold true in The States too), but let’s go farther than that. Perhaps other business travelers are different than me, but when my company is sending me out of town, fast food is the last thing they are going to be feeding me.

Tweak Your Environment

For starters, it helps to try to lay out a conducive infrastructure for eating well. One way I pulled that off was to look for hotels that had kitchenettes. It wasn’t always possible. Sometimes the client has a specific list of hotels where they have negotiated corporate rates and you have to stay there. Other times, it’s more of a guideline like “spend less than $200 per night.” So if you have a bit of leeway, seek out Residence Inns or any hotel with “Suites” in the name (Homewood Suites, Staybridge Suites, Embassy Suites, etc) as they typically have, at the least, a two-burner stove and a fridge, along with some pots, pans, and utensils.

If you’re a consultant and will be at a specific location for 3-6 months of more, inquire about the possibility of getting a corporate apartment. For one thing, that saves you the hassle of lugging all of your bags back and forth every week. But you also get a kitchen in those places. And if you’re on a “spend less than $x” guideline, nothing stops you from negotiating a better rate. Use the information that you’re going to be there for the next several months and that you’re on a project with a number of other businessfolk to your advantage. Talk to your coworkers to see if they are interested in staying in such a place. If so, you gain negotiating leverage as a hotel would rather have a guarantee of booking five rooms at a $50 discount for the next two months than have those rooms possibly go unused.

If you pull off finding a hotel with a kitchen, you can hit the grocery for fresh and frozen vegetables, meat or seafood, and a bottle of olive oil or possibly even coconut oil and do some cooking in your room. You can throw some of your own spices from home in a baggie or just grab a jar on site. Just remember to keep the heat low when cooking with olive oil.

Set Ground Rules

So let’s say you’re a Monday through Thursday traveler. This setup makes it fairly easy to maintain a decent diet, even while on the road. For one thing, you’re home Thursday night (barring flight delays and cancellations) in time for a late dinner and then you have the whole weekend to stay on track. But excuses are also easy to come up with for the other nights of the week.

Here are a few that I’ve used with success and that other consultants also used. Monday is easy. For most consultants, this is a travel day, entailing getting up early and fighting the airport. Try “I’m tired from traveling. I think I’m just going to grab something and head back to the hotel.” It works like a charm because your compadres will suddenly realize how tired they are from traveling too.

And if you fly out on Thursday, Wednesday is the night you pack. Sure, packing a bag for three-nights is a quick and simple task once you’ve done it a few times. But that doesn’t mean anyone will argue with you when you use it. There’s also the old standby of “I’m going to hit the gym and then just grab a bite.” (Then actually go get a workout in.)

Basically, I tried to limit my restaurant eating to only one day per week for dinner. That enabled me to be “part of the team” without having to completely sacrifice my health. And after a few weeks, everyone on the team pretty much adopted the same schedule: Monday and Tuesday evening, grab something on your own; Wednesday, team dinner then back to the hotel to pack. Lunches can be a bit hairier with time constraints and probably a lower expense limit than dinner, but even that can be fixed with a trip to the local grocery store’s salad bar.

Find A Good Fit

Finally, look for places where you can maintain the type of diet that you follow. A few pop into mind as being very useful.

Whole Foods

Lucky for me, Whole Foods was right across the street from my hotel in Philadelphia. Actually, I was in Devon, PA, a western ‘burb, but whatever. Lucky for you, Whole Foods has locations pretty much everywhere. There are two ways to skin this cat. First, every Whole Foods that I’ve been in has a pretty extensive salad bar, full of fresh vegetables, hard-boiled eggs, various dressings (including a huge bottle of olive oil), and meat of some kind. Then there is usually a hot bar section where you can get steamed vegetables or vegetable stews, roasted chicken, turkey with gravy, etc.

The Whole Foods I was visiting the past few weeks had some cold meat salads and such as well. While there is the obvious choice of tuna salad, they also had a Thai Beef and Cabbage Salad with red cabbage, beef strips, onions, and a few other ingredients. But the nice thing about eating at Whole Foods is that, while the foods are prepared ahead of time, the ingredients are listed. You’ll probably end up eating some canola oil, but you can see if there is flour or other ingredients you wish to avoid.

The other way to maximize your Whole Foods eating? Unfortunately, I’ve only come across this tip at one Whole Foods, but it doesn’t hurt to check it out. In Columbus, the Whole Foods up in Dublin has a grill. At least once a week, I would go to the fresh seafood counter, grab a slab of fish, and have them grill it up for me. While it grilled, I hit the salad bar, loaded up on vegetables, and came back to grab my delicious grilled tuna, salmon, or swordfish.

I’ve been turned down before even when they have a grill, but it doesn’t hurt to ask “If I get some fish, can you grill it for me?” Tell the employee that you are in a hotel and don’t have any way to cook for some sympathy points. And don’t forget to smile sweetly and be your charming self. Also don’t act like a child if they say no. I don’t think they’re actually supposed to cook the raw items for you, but you might get a nice hookup if you act right.

If we change one letter in “extensive” we get another adjective to describe the Whole Foods salad bar: expensive. But you’re not paying for it, so eat up.

Trader Joe’s

Trader Joe’s is a bit tougher for the road warrior than is Whole Foods. They don’t have a prepared food bar and most of the stuff requires cooking or some way to chop vegetables. However, you can get $4-5 bags of nuts, jars of olives, fruits and vegetables, and anything else that tickles your fancy.

Ted’s Montana Grill

I just wanted to give a shout-out to one of the places I looked for everywhere I went. I first ran across this place while on a project in the north-east suburbs of Columbus and then found one again when in the Raleigh-Durham area a few months later. Ted’s has a nice selection of bison steaks, roasted chicken, seafood, vegetables, and some unreal bison chili. Seriously, I used to lead into a meal with two bowls of chili and a salad before killing a bison steak.

Steakhouses and Seafood

So Ted’s was one specific example, but there are steakhouses and seafood joints all over the nation. Think Bonefish Grill, Mitchell’s Fish Market, Stoney River, or even Texas Roadhouse. Find one, order a steak or slab of fish and double the vegetables. But I think we all know the tricks to use when eating at a restaurant, so I won’t rehash them in much depth. Basically, choose meat and seafood rather than pasta, swap the starches for more vegetables, get a salad or bowl of soup, and ask for olive oil and vinegar dressing. Sure, it’s not as good as grilling your own grass-fed steak or roast at home where you can control the ingredients, but that’s the life you choose when going on the road.

Make It A Cheat

There is also the possibility to use some of your leeway for allowing wisely-chosen vices into your diet while eating with colleagues. For instance, my weekly dinner with the work crew was often to a local Indian restaurant where we destroyed chicken jalfrezi, malai kofta, samosas and pakoras, lamb vindaloo, and plenty of paratha and naan. Pick something that’s worth breaking the diet over and have at it. Just remember to make your vices something you really want. Don’t eat a Snickers if chips and salsa is what you’re really jonesing for.

Use Le Goog

Here’s a little trick. Quite a few of you are probably hip to this, but it’s a good trick that I use for any number of things on the road. First, go to Google Maps and type in the address of your hotel or work site. Next, click the “Find Businesses” link under the address box and enter “steak,” “sushi,” “bar,” “restaurant,” or whatever else you come up with. Then, for any of the bigger places, you’ll probably get a link to their website so you can check out the menu and plan ahead. On top of that, there are usually reviews so you know if the place is any good. Google to the rescue again.

You can also use this trick to find hotels near your work site and call them to ask about a kitchen. Don’t forget to use the negotiating tricks above.

If I can accomplish eating well while working in Podunk, OH, you can certainly pull it off in Big City, USA.

Oh, and one last tip: Avoid airport food.

What are your travel tips? How do you maintain your diet and health while on the road?

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