Eating Healthy on the Road with a Picky Eater

My son Noah is the pickiest eater in the world. He is very specific about what he wants to eat, he has a really hard time trying new things. He is stubborn like his mama. He won’t eat meat. He won’t eat chicken nuggets. He won’t eat hot dogs, or fish sticks. When we travel it can be a total pain to feed him. He doesn’t really have any options at McDonald’s or Wendy’s. He used to just get apples and milk or sometimes ice cream and milk. I have learned that while I would be fine with McDonald’s, Noah isn’t good with it, unless I let him get ice cream. That is a great treat every so often but not for a meal. I have started packing him foods and stopping at places with healthier options. I used to be able to eat McDonald’s and other fast food a lot, now it is an occasional treat. I am getting older and I feel that it makes me feel sick and greasy if I eat too much.

We don’t have allergies but it would be harder to eat on the road if your family did. Noah is pretty good about eating the stuff I pack him like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Honestly, the only “fast food” Noah eats is Steak N Shake and Panera. I don’t consider either fast food. He will occasionally eat Subway because they have good cheese sandwiches and lettuce. That’s what he told me a week ago. I don’t really mind though, because he’s not obsessed with fast food like I was when I was a kid. I only got it once a week but I loved it so much. It was my favorite thing about Thursdays or spending time with my dad because I knew I could have fast food. Of course I love my dad but fast food was just a huge bonus. I think it’s important to start good eating habits young and when you are traveling it’s difficult to remain consistent. 

Here are my tips about Eating Healthy on the Road.

Healthy Snacks for Traveling

It's no secret I love food. I love going grocery shopping. I love cooking and baking. I love to eat. When I am traveling for the holidays or just in general, it's all about the food. We used to bring snack bags on trips with us. My Grandma Rose always made the best snack bags. She would have one waiting for us and have one for us to take with us on the way home. It was one of my favorite things. I would give anything to have one right now. When Noah was about three, I started making Noah a snack bag for when we travel. It is a great way to give him healthy choices while saving money. Buying snacks every time we stop is not practical or affordable. The choices are not the best and well Noah is extremely picky. I have to make sure while we are traveling for the holidays, he has good choices for snacks and drinks. Gas stations don't really offer much when it comes to kids' drinks. He likes some juice and keeping gas station milk ice cold can be challenging even with a cooler. I am teaching him about healthy foods and that treats are fine in moderation but when you only have junk as a choice something needs to be done.

Be sure to read this post about what I put in our Holiday Snack Bag for Travel

Ward Off Vampires This Halloween with Garlic Turbana Plantain Chips

I love Cuban food. I am sure some of you remember my recipe for Cuban Sandwiches on my blog. I am a pretty picky eater and I was unsure about trying plantains for the first time. I think I probably had to be coerced to try them.  I ended up loving them.  My favorite kinds of plantains are the chips. When I lived in South Florida, I happened to live pretty much across the street from my favorite Cuban restaurant that I ended up going to a few years earlier on vacation a couple times.  The smashed plantains are good too, but not as good as the chips. That was my favorite thing to order from the Cuban restaurant with my Cubano.  When I first fell in love with Plantain chips, I was living in Indiana. I remember going on a plantain chip hunt with my ex husband.  We probably when to four Latino grocery stores before we found plantain chips back in 2004.  So, when I had the opportunity to review some Turbana Plantain chips you knew I jumped on that opportunity.  Turbana is a company that is based in South Florida, close to where I used to live.  They make flavored plantain chips. They are a much healthier choice than the normal potato chips. They would be a better afterschool snack or even with Halloween coming up as a better alternative for Trick or Treaters.  You know that your kids are going to end up with tons of candy, it would be nice if some people gave out some Turbana Plantain Chips, hopefully the garlic flavor for two reasons. The first reason is to ward off those vampires.  #2 so I can eat them all. 

 When I received the Turbana plantain chips to try out, they seriously lasted a hour. I salivated at the thought of garlic plantain chips. I think that the company must have done their research on me and knew that garlic is one of my most favorite things to eat. Yeah, they were shoveled in my mouth by the handful.  I was so sad when they were all gone. I had Noah, who gets his picky eater syndrome from me, try one.  He thought the garlic ones were hot.  I wasn’t too sad, I said to him, more for me then.  I asked him if he wanted to try the regular plantain chips, I told him they weren’t hot, and he loved him. He said and I quote. Plantain chips are my most  favoritest food.  Noah doesn’t really eat any chips though so I am glad he loves plantains as much as I do.   I felt good about giving Noah them because they have 30% less fat than potato chips and twice the flavor. I am sure someone out there is unaware of what a plantain is. I didn’t know for most of my life. It looks similar to a banana, but it doesn’t taste like one.  It’s a tropical food, it is used a lot in Latino cuisine.  It sounds different but we love them.  So, from my picky eaters to yours, check out Turbana Plantain chips.  

For more information please check out the Turbana Plantainchips website.

I received some samples of Turbana Plantain chips for my family to try out. All thoughts and opinions are our own.

Late July Cookies Review

“Cookies Cookies” Noah is a cookie monster. I sometimes wonder if he is a direct descendant of Cookie Monster himself. Not because he is blue or furry but because he loves cookies that much. So when I had the opportunity to try out some cookies from Late July I thought these would be perfect for my little cookie monster.

Late July is a family owned and operated organic snack company. It was started by Stephan Bernard and Nicole Dawes. Late July makes cookies in both full size and mini sandwich cookies. The full sized sandwich cookies flavors are Vanilla Bean and Dark Chocolate. The mini sandwich cookies come in mini milk chocolate and mini white chocolate. They also make two flavors of full size crackers Classic Saltines and Classic Rich crackers. There are mini peanut butter sandwich crackers too.
Everything they make is USDA certified organic made with fine ingredients.

Late July has been featured on The Food Network show Unwrapped. I learned a lot about Late July when I saw them featured on Unwrapped. One of the things I learned is the little boy and the dog is the Nicole’s son and dog. You can also find a secret number written in the sailboat that has to do with her son’s birthday. See if you can find it while you are snacking on these gourmet organic goodies.

We had the chance to try both varieties of the organic mini cookies. Noah loves them. He gobbles them up. The mini cookies they have animals on them because 10% of the profits go to the Jane Goodall Institute. Noah really likes to name the animals on the cookies as he eats them. It is really cute to listen to him talk about the animals. He asks for the cookies all the time. He calls them the cookies with the animals on them. I had to try them too. I love cookies too. I think they taste good. I have tried other organic cookies before and Late July tastes so much better than the other ones I tried. They don’t taste like they are a healthier option. We both like them a lot. We like to sit together and share a small bowl of cookies. I usually only get one or two though. I feel confident giving him Late July Organic Mini Cookies because they don’t have all the extras like High Fructose Corn Syrup in them. They are made with whole grain and are a good source of calcium.

You can find Late July products in stores. You can use the store locator on the side bar of the website to find a location near you!

For more information please visit Late July. Please visit the Late July store to order delicious cookies and crackers that your little one are sure to love.

Thank you to Late July for sending me some samples of mini organic cookies for me to review.