Gluten soy free travel - Tips for Trips

Before discussing the issue of food and travel, I need to make a few things clear:

When carrying unrefrigerated food, we must ALWAYS be mindful of the temperature we are exposing it to.  Although many foods do not need refrigeration, it is always best to err on the side of caution if traveling in hot climates.  Prepared food and heat are not a wise combination.  So always be cautious about consuming food that has been kept at warm temperatures for any length of time.  Use common sense and stay food safe.  Having said that.......

I'm one of those strange people who actually like to fly.  I didn't set foot on an airplane until I was in my early thirties.  My first trip was from London to Chicago.  Quite an initiation but I loved it.  I had always loved to travel but my modes of transportation until that time were buses, trains and cars.  Of those, my favorite was the train.  I always chose a window seat if possible and sat mesmerized as the towns and countryside whizzed by.  When I took my first airplane ride, it was just as if the train had risen off its tracks and was now ploughing through the clouds, the countryside was just further away and went by faster!

I still travel quite frequently and it wasn't long after going gluten and soy free that I faced my first trip by air.  How was I to manage my new diet and an airplane ride?  For various reasons (too complicated to discuss here), I always travel standby.  That means I cannot reserve a special meal so I can't comment on the gluten free offerings from the airlines (perhaps you can?).  However, having to avoid soy as well as gluten probably means that an airline meal is out anyway.  It also means that I only take carryon luggage.  In a future post, I will write about how I take food for the vacation as well as the airplane ride, but for now let's stick to the travel part.

So....what to do?  Try to buy food at the airport?  Take food along?  What food?  Mmmm, many questions and dilemmas.  Undaunted I tackled the issue.

I should add that I also love the outdoors.  What does that have to do with this topic?  Well, if you have ever hiked or backpacked you will understand.  Strenuous physical activity in the outdoors requires the transportation of food - lots of food.  This food has to be nutritious, easily portable and non-refrigerated.  Putting together a cache of food that you can carry and consume for several days takes a lot of planning and imagination.  If you've done this, taking a meal and a few snacks on an airplane isn't such an insurmountable task.

The first thing to know about taking food on airplanes is that TSA doesn't care about food as long as it isn't liquid or goopy.  They also don't care if your liquid or goopy stuff is mixed with the solid stuff.  For example, if you are taking a salad and dressing, keep them separate until just before you go through security.  Then put the dressing on the salad.  As long as you are going to consume the salad within a couple of hours, it will be fine.  Alternatively, put your salad dressing in a less than 3 ounce container and put it in your liquid "baggie" so you can mix the two later.

Sandwiches are fine.  Use any filling you like but figure out how long it has to last to judge whether or not to include meat or other items that might go "off".  I always avoid mayonnaise on anything when I either hike or travel.  It is the food most likely to cause digestive problems and should always be refrigerated.

I don't eat meat as well as gluten and soy so I am further limited.  But never fear!  There are always nut butters - almond is my favorite rather than peanut.  Nut butter and jelly sandwiches are travel hardy and the worst that happens is that they get a bit soggy, but that's usually from an over enthusiastic amount of jelly so I try to be sparing with that.

I also take along veggies - carrots, celery and my all time favorite, sugar snap peas all make for great crunchy snacks.  Fruit of course is always welcome and energy bars, as long as they are gluten and soy free, are handy.  I always carry a bag of mixed nuts, dried fruits such as cranberries and cherries, and dates with me, not just when I travel but at all times.  This makes a handy protein and energy boost whenever I need one and a small baggie doesn't take up much room in my handbag.

Since going gluten and soy free, I make my own granola and honey roasted nuts.  Both are so easy to make and great to take along on trips.  (Yes, I am getting around to posting recipes soon.  Keep watching this space!).

Other trip friendly foods are gluten soy free cookies, raisin bread (Rudi's is the best), hard-boiled eggs, potato or corn chips (as long as not cooked in vegetable oil) and gluten soy free breakfast cereal (to crunch on without milk).  I am a tea drinker so I always take my own teabags on airplanes.  They serve Starbucks coffee but only have Lipton tea?  What's up with that?

Every time I travel, I figure out some other way to make the gluten soy free experience easier so I'll continue to share my ideas here.

What's your favorite gluten soy free travel tip?

Soy Lecithin - Allergen or just a tongue twister?

Whenever I try to pronounce the word "lecithin" I am always reminded of a childhood tongue twister that I never did quite conquer.  It goes: "There were six thick sticks and six thin sticks in the thicket."  Combining c's and th's in close proximity seems to be one of language's slip ups.  It makes speaking very difficult.

With soy lecithin, however, the more pertinent question is - does it make life more difficult for the soy allergic person?

When I first discovered that I had both an allergy and an intolerance of soy, I was appalled at the amount of the stuff that was sneaked into all kinds of foods.  Did you know for example, that tuna "in water" is not (for the most part) in water?  It is in fact, in vegetable broth.  Check the ingredients and you will see.  And what is vegetable broth?  Well, almost always it is made from soy.  After all soybeans are a vegetable aren't they?  So it qualifies.  Just quite how it qualifies as water, I am not sure, nor do I know how the manufacturers get away with stating that their product is floating in something it isn't.  There is available canned tuna that is truly in water but you'll have to search for it, read many labels and pay more for the privilege of pouring away water rather than vegetable broth after you open the can.  (By the way, my cat doesn't seem to know the difference.  He comes running as soon as he hears the can opener whether it is broth or water that gets poured into his bowl!)

I determined that I ought to stay away from soy sauce (which also contains gluten - a double whammy for me), edamame beans, soy milk and other products obviously containing soy but I was left with the question of soy lecithin.  What was it?  What did it do?  Was I allergic to it?

I decided to cut it out until I had done some research. 

Seems that soy lecithin is a useful product.  Not only does it act as a binder and emulsifier enabling food ingredients to stick and blend together, but it is also high in choline which is good for the brain.  This was interesting to me as I already take choline as a supplement because I discovered that people who have anxiety (a condition I have tackled all my life) also have low levels of choline in the brain.

Still, there is that question of allergy and intolerance.  So for the past almost a year I have avoided products with soy lecithin in them - no mean feat as it is in practically everything that has more than two ingredients.  Careful label reading however, has turned up things that are lecithin free including sorbets and even some chocolate chips (I haven't yet found a chocolate bar that is lecithin free however - and trust me, I've tried!).

Most discussion of soy lecithin points out that allergic reactions tend to be because of the proteins in soy and that the process of producing lecithin eliminates these.  Therefore, most people ought to be able to consume them without a problem.

A fact sheet from the United Soybean Board states:

"The allergens in soybeans reside in the protein fraction of the bean. The allergenic
potential of specific soyfoods and/or ingredients is largely based on processing
techniques and the amount of protein or protein residue remaining in the final product. 
The majority of soy lecithin used in food applications is derived from refined soybean oil
that has been processed using the hot-solvent extraction technique, which eliminates
most, if not all, allergenic proteins."

But then, I think they might be just a tad biased maybe......?

I still don't have an answer for this question.  I may tentatively experiment with some food that include soy lecithin just to see.  I really do not like to have to use myself as a guinea pig but then, often that is the way with food allergies.  There are no hard and fast rules, no set-in-stone guidelines and one has to figure out the deal for each individual.

I'd love to hear if you are avoiding soy lecithin or if you can tolerate it.  In the meantime, I'll keep you posted.  There are an awful lot of chocolate things out there calling softly to me.........