Traveling While AIP – POTG Test Kitchen

I was thinking about travel and what an important part of my life it is.  I have an extensive list of destinations that I plan to visit with my husband in the upcoming years.  There is nothing like the excitement of planning an adventure into a completely different culture or environment.  

One thing we usually do is stay in a house or condominium rather than a hotel room.  The reason for this is that I’d rather not eat every meal out. Especially in the morning, I need to have a really good cup of coffee and a hearty breakfast.  I don’t want to be wasting half the day in restaurants waiting to be served rather than out hiking or seeing the sights.

That being said, I just assembled our Shutterfly photo books from the last two trips.  One was to Spain and Portugal and the other trip was to Peru. There were an alarming number of photos of us eating the local fare.  It looks as if we may have spent half the time eating, or maybe I just like photos of food. I don’t know.

I got to thinking about how I would handle it if I had a severe food allergy or allergies or needed to eat AIP to manage an autoimmune condition, on a vacation, especially one in another country.  Most people wouldn’t wonder about stuff like this but being a chef here at Paleo on the Go, where we prepare thousands of meals every week for people that can’t just eat any old thing, it made me wonder

A quick online search informed me that most airlines will permit you to bring frozen food packed in a cooler with dry ice as long as you check the cooler and notify them of the dry ice.  Each customer is limited to 5.5 pounds total of dry ice. The packaging must allow for the release of carbon dioxide gas.  This could be a big help so that you can use your own reliable local suppliers to get the food you need and prepare it ahead of time, freeze it and pack it in a box or cooler with some dry ice (you can get dry ice at most supermarkets, by the way).  If you did not want to do all of that, you could place an order with us for your meals and keep them in your condo refrigerator/freezer, and not have to worry about where to get AIP compliant food in a foreign country. When you stay in lodging that has its own kitchen, it’s nice because you have your options open to shop in the local markets which can be extremely colorful, and try some of the local produce, fish and meats.  

That reminds me of one of our customers who likes to cruise and she arranged for us to ship her week’s meals to the cruiseship dock where they were transferred to the ship’s galley and the chefs there were able to reheat the meals for her and supplement them with fresh salads, 

fruits and other AIP friendly foods that were available on board.  If you ever wanted to go that route, I’d recommend you type up a list of all the foods you can and cannot eat and give it to the chef on the first day so that they can work on special dishes for you. Here’s a secret – when you have a restricted diet, and you go into a restaurant or resort – the most experienced and best chef is going to be the one preparing your food.  The junior cooks won’t be able to handle it.

 

Our next trip this Spring is to Tuscany and then the Swiss Alps.  We are renting a villa outside Lucca and will drive the countryside during the day and retire to the villa at night to cook dinner from the local foods we plan to buy.  The following week, we are staying in a cute little town in Switzerland called Lauterbrunnen. I am still in the process of researching the local cuisine and what we will want to try when we get there – besides cheese and chocolate of course.  We are staying in a house there as well, which will be a wonderful place to rest after a long day of hiking and touring.

 

Every country has something wonderful that you can eat on an AIP diet.  It pays to do a little research ahead of time so that you can have some amazing culinary experiences in addition to the scenery, culture and art.  

 This just gave me an idea for the next post.  AIP around the world, with the best dishes from each country.  I still think about the char-grilled octopus I had in Naples, the ceviche in Lima, oh and Norway had that amazing fish soup, and the sausage in Germany was the best I ever had.  I don’t know about you but I’m getting very hungry about now.

 Talk to you soon;

 Chef Ann Lotterhos