Oh, food on the road... by Dawn

Monday, June 16: After a very long (and very fun!) weekend at Bonnaroo, we are off to the next phase of our mini road-trip… driving to Boulder, CO. Today we left Tullahoma, TN (where our hotel was) with high hopes of traveling a great distance so that the next few days of our trip can be leisurely… but that didn’t happen. St. Louis just got further and further away from us! We only stopped once for food, but somehow this threw us off track by a couple of hours. Which brings me to a very important lesson from our day… it’s HARD to eat sustainably and healthy on the road! When you are going from point A to point B and you don’t have much time to fool around and you don't want to stray far from your set path – you end up staring out the window at the many fast food restaurants thinking that maybe just around the next corner will be a better choice. But what actually happens is that around that next corner (and next and next) is another McDonald's, Sonic, Hardee's, Taco Bell, Subway, Wendy's, Burger King, Pizza Hut...

And that is exactly what happened today. Along I-24 from TN to IL there were only fast food restaurants. We decided to go into one of the towns with letters that were printed BIG on the map- we figured they should have lots of choices. Clarksville, TN was our choice… a beautiful town with a lot of law offices and not much food (beside fast food!). We finally stopped at O'Charley's, their "casual-dining restaurants serve good American food." The staff was really friendly and helpful - our host, Chad, has been attempting to eat organic produce (not an easy task in Clarksville) and also hadn’t eaten dairy in 2 years. Our waitress kindly helped us to reinvent a salad so that there wasn't any meat on it (there wasn’t one salad on the menu without meat). The salad, which looked beautiful, and did have some wonderful greens in it, was also filled with sugary cranberries, sugar coated pecans, mandarin slices in sugar syrup and a sugary dressing on the side. While this seemed like a good attempt at healthy eating in a pinch, it turned out not to be!

I really think all of this comes down to pre-planning - from basic grocery shopping at home to eating on the road, if you are prepared, it will make your life much more sustainable and healthy! Pack a picnic before you leave on a road trip, or if you have the time- try to find sustainable restaurants along your route (a tool for this coming soon from the Eat Well Guide!). But if you can't go to far away from your planned route or there just aren’t sustainable choices anywhere nearby, your best option is to stop at the farmers' market or your garden before you leave and take good food with you!

Article Tag(s): sustainable table, road trip

If you are interested in commenting on this blog, please go to our forum...