September 06, 2012

Car food

We started taking our three boys on long car trips when they were very young, and anyone who has traveled with kids knows it can be stressful. The three things that most improved our long-ago car treks were air conditioning, a minivan, and a large cooler packed with snacks. I prepared things for days before those trips, so we'd have loads of interesting snacks to hand the kids along the way. But, now I wonder, was it really just for the kids? Now that the boys are grown and on their own, I see I'm still carting the car snacks — but now they're for me.

There's something about putting me into a small space (like a car or an airplane) where I can't move around much, that makes me hungry. I mean HUNGRY. Normally, I'm not much of a snacker, but stick me in a car for a few hours and I'll start gnawing on the dashboard. When we make our yearly four-day drive to Wisconsin, we take a small cooler for fresh food, as well as lots of packaged stuff that may or may not be healthy. Put me in the car and I need CHIPS!

This year's trip was a whole new experience — way back in June I was sent a box of healthy, gluten-free snacks from Healthy Surprise, and because I really hardly ever eat snacks on a daily basis, I still had the whole box to take on the trip in July. Once on the road, we snacked pretty much with abandon, and still had enough snacks to use on the way back to Seattle, too. And were they good snacks? Oh yes, they were. Our box of gluten-free packets was diverse and delicious  —  I honestly had no idea there were so many choices available. The box contained everything from Home Free cookies, Go Raw pizza flax snacks, Samba 99 fruit bar, Go Raw pumpkin super chips, Bare Fruit granny smith dried apples, Twin Cakes biscotti, Gone Nuts spinach pesto walnuts, almonds and pumpkin seeds, Gone Nuts thai lemon curry cashews, almonds and coconut, Mrs. Mays freeze-dried pears, etc., etc.

Weird, bloated pic of a delicious snack
We enjoyed just about everything we tasted, but our absolute favorite snack was Gone Nuts clusters of cacao, almonds, raisins, blueberries & coconut. A few bags of this might turn me into a snack-crazed monster.

I wish I had more photos of the wonderful snacks, but they were mostly consumed in the car, and photo conditions were not optimal. The Healthy Surprise snack boxes can be purchased as a snack-of-the-month club subscription, if you are a serious snackster, or one box at a time for special occasions like car trips or gifts. I'm pretty sure we'll be wanting to take a box along on our next long drive. If you'd like to try out a box, you can get a discount by using the code the company sent me. They have offered readers of this blog a coupon to use for $5 off unlimited orders. Here's the code: COKEASYVEGAN. Notice it says COK, not Cook. And my name isn't Lacey, though they seem to think it might be. (And no, I'm not an affiliate so I have nothing to gain if you use the code.) I thought the sample box I received was top notch. The snacks from Healthy Surprise are vegan, gluten-free, GMO-free, soy-free, and some are raw. I'm telling you this because many people have food intolerances and/or preferences and need the information, but even if you couldn't care less whether a food is GF or soy-free, the snacks are fantastic!

Full disclosure: The Healthy Surprise box was sent to me free of charge, no strings attached. I was not paid to write the review, nor am I a distributor or affiliate of the company.

23 comments:

  1. i love snacking in the car! my mom always keeps some food in the car in case i get hungry and we don;t want to stop for food :)

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  2. Maud gifted me those pizza flax snacks and eegads were they delicious. I'm really trying not to click on the link you provided. Lacey.

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    1. The pizza flax snacks were really good — they didn't last long even though the bag was pretty generous. I wonder if you'll click.
      Yours truly,
      Lacey

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  3. Sounds like some great snacks for a road trip! We tend to snack like you do when we go on ours & usually bring quite a bit with us.

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    1. I'm sure glad I don't get car sick anymore like I did when I was younger. Snacking is so much more fun than barfing. :)

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  4. Yeah I always eat double in the car. Makes me hungry too. The healthy box looks good. The gone nuts are amazing. At Madison market you can get them in bulk. That may have been a problem at one point. ;-)

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    1. Thanks for the tip about Madison Market, I think. It's far enough out of the way for us to limit the amount and frequency we would buy Gone Nuts, but it's very tempting.

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  5. Good snacks make a long trip so much easier! It's a pleasant and tasty diversion, plus it's infinitely healthier than seeking out whatever is available at the gas station. I'm glad you made it back home safe and sound!

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    1. Having a neat little box filled with healthy snacks made me almost giddy every time I said, "hmmm, I think it must be time for a snack!" Most of the snacks were new to me which made it even more fun.

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  6. Haha, I thought the post said "Cat Food" and was a little confused at first to see raw nuts and Hail merrys :) Looks like Healthy Surprise gave you a really generous package! I snack a lot anyway (probably more than I should) but yeah, there isn't much else to do in a car besides eat and sing along to road tunes. I hope you did some of the later too?

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    1. That's really weird because I was thinking someone would read it that way when I typed in the title. I must have been thinking of you! As for singing along, yes, I have a knack for remembering lyrics. When one of my boys was very young he asked me if I knew the words to every song ever written — I listened to the oldies a lot and, yes, I sang along to every song. I was taken aback and had a hard time explaining why that seemed to be true but really wasn't. :)

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  7. I am the same way in the car! It is like I can't NOT eat, lol. Your snacks look amazing. I *love* the Bare Fruit snacks! I wish they were not so darn expensive...those and the freeze dried fruit. I swear I could live off of them, but I couldn't afford to! How did you like the Mrs May's freeze dried fruit? That is one brand I haven't tried...is it worth their expensive price tag?

    Courtney

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    1. You know, at first I thought the snack boxes were expensive, but if they are anything like the sample I had, they are really reasonable. I can't remember Mrs, Mays specifically, but I think I liked all the dried fruit we tried.

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  8. Thanks! I wasn't commenting on the snack box price, but specifically the price of the freeze dried fruit. It is an expensive addiction, lol! I will have to check out the boxes!

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    1. Yes, that's what I meant. When I looked at the retail prices of the individual packages, the snack boxes seemed pretty reasonable. It's easy not to notice how much we spend on snacks when we buy them one packet at a time!

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  9. I find that once I *start* snacking, I can't stop.. So maybe that's part of your problem. But who cares? There's nothing wrong with snacking ;). You just need to pop a little bottle of vodka in there with you and you'll be fine... (provided you're not driving, of course)..

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    1. Nope, that's not my problem. It's being confined in a small space for long periods of time. It makes me very hungry. I'd better not ever get arrested and thrown into jail. :)

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  10. Oh, yes, we are definitely a snackin' family. Gotta have them even on short road trips. If we buy those boxes, besides having the code discount, is it cheaper to buy by the box than individually?

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    1. I think it's a lot cheaper to buy the boxes, but I don't buy many snacks except when we travel, so I don't have the prices in my head. The other thing was the amazing variety in the box. I hadn't even heard of most of the choices. With just the two of us, we had lots of opportunities for good snacking. I might have had a hard time sharing with a larger group. :)

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  11. Oh yes, I remember all the toys we had to carry along. And books. And, of course, food. Now it's just food. And iphones. :)

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  12. Okay, that whole code doesn't make sense to me, Lacey.But those snackies are screaming ROAD TRIP!

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    1. It's very simple, really. You enter the code into the place on the order page where it says promotion code. You'd think the code would be cookeasyvegan, but the email said cokeasyvegan. Now I'm not sure if the mistake was in the code or the email. Maybe someone will try it and find out.

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