{Today’s Lunchbox} Philadelphia!

Reminder – giveaway to win a ticket to the Take Back Your Health Conference here.

Happy Saturday! I am in Philadelphia for the Healthy Living Summit today. As many of you already known, I write a lunchbox series on this blog, in addition to writing about mindful living, gluten-free vegan recipes, and yoga. – and yes, there are many lunchboxes that I bring to work, but I also consider the term lunchbox to encompass all sorts of tips for travel and weekends.

Like this weekend!

When I was planning this trip, I was heartened to see that the hotel is across the street from Reading Terminal and not far from a Whole Foods. That also means that when I worked late every night this week, I did not worry too much about food preparation and bringing a lot to food with me. So I packed the above for my train trip and the weekend, keeping these things in mind:

Breakfast: I like a hearty breakfast, and so I packed two ziplocs with dry ingredients for chocolatey oats with 1/3 cup gluten-free oats, 1.5 tablespoons chia seeds, and 1 tablespoon raw cacao. With a banana and/or nut butter and some non-dairy milk, that’s an easy breakfast.
Versatility: Lara bars can supplement a salad, serve as a snack, or serve as breakfast with some fruit. Perfect for travel.
Cross-contamination: Speaking of salads, when I travel I rely a lot of salads and raw vegetables in general – I always ask questions about cross-contamination, but I also work with the logic that the less handling, the less the potential of cross-contamination. Some restaurants and Whole Foods now have policies that vegetables can only be cut on certain boards (i.e. green boards) and nothing else can be cut on them, and that helps my comfort level with cross-contamination. Nothing beats asking questions though.
Access to a fruits and veggies: Having across-the-street access to Reading Terminal meant that juices and smoothies are easily available, as is produce. This is key for me as I find that juice bars rarely serve gluten-based products, which means I have to worry less about cross-contamination. I still ask questions, but knowing that a juice bar is nearby is nice as it is one place I can rely on for some amount of nutrition
Protein and good fats: Two additional items I like are protein and nut butter. I packed the protein powder below, but did not pack nut butter as I had heard there would be some at HLS.

And there was nut butter! Here is my breakfast from this morning: my baggie of gluten-free oats, chia seeds and cacao ended up in the breakfast on the right, along a banana and some protein powder that I brought, with some soy milk and nut butter from the conference: