What can you take on a hike or camping trip, or bike ride? What can you buy for a snack? What can you put in your pocket when rushing off to work on a business trip or holiday, getting up early to catch a plane, too early for the hotel breakfast? What can I eat, when the family are on holiday, and I am left behind. What can I eat, which is easy as a meal for one, or use as a diet?
I read about the advantages of bananas. They supposedly contain some vitamin c and cure constipation and enhance your mood. Bananas are easy to carry if you wake late, have no time for breakfast and rush to catch a plane or train. (They also squash more easily and make a mess at the bottom of your pocket or bag. Bananas are more messy, squashy and smelly than an apple.)
I googled banana diet and safety and asked my family. I learned that bananas lack protein, which is essential for your diet. Maybe that's why I have read about young couples who killed their babies or young children by feeding them only fruit and vegetables. The missing ingredient is protein.
What provides protein? Obviously meat, eggs, dairy, animal products. So a hard boiled egg is good, if you have time to cook it, and are not a vegan.
My husband said, 'The porters on my treks in Nepal were from poor families and their diet had two ingredients, rice and lentils. The lentils provide protein. Like the British staple of beans on toast."
So now I know what to eat to provide protein, if he goes on a trip and leaves me behind. Beans on toast, and bananas and fruit as snacks. Or rice and lentils, with fruit.
I see advertisements for energy bars, protein bars, beef jerky. If I am not hiking, but sitting at home, blogging on my computer, writing books on good English, unwilling to waste time cooking, I would rather eat fresh fruit, seed bread, and a protein, with drinking water.
Or maybe stick to my usual diet. And vary food at every meal in order to not miss out on any essentials. Some people take multi-vitamins. My husband says, 'If you check that your daily diet has enough calories as well as all the essentials, you should not need extra vitamins.
Pam Ayers has an amusing poem on what her husband says.
However, my husband's knowledge is backed by two essentials
1 He has degrees, undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, and a diploma in wine which means he has had to study viticulture.
2 He is a statistician and reviews papers for scientific journals.
3 He has experimented with lots of foods and drinks on treks and hikes several times a year for several years.
4 He investigated healthy diets when he was diagnosed with lymphoma more than five years ago. He is now in remission.
5 He cooks, often several variations of a recipe. For example, this week Italian biscotti. So he knows the ingredients, the calorie count, how long the food is cooked, and at what temperature, the size of each portion before and after cooking, and how the cooking affects the flavour and texture. He weighs food before cooking, cutting and serving to check the amount we consume, per person, at each meal. I am smaller and exercise less so I am served smaller portions.
He reads the ingredients before and after buying. He checks UK websites and recipes, but compares them with worldwide variations. He reads foreign language recipes. He reads studies on alcohol consumption, and articles and newspapers by putting them into translation tools.
But don't do as he says, do as he does. Do your own research, applying it to your own situation.
Meanwhile, our basic breakfast includes yogurt, fruit (5 kinds), nuts and seeds, and either oats, sometimes soaked in milk the night before and left in the fridge overnight and heated up in the morning, or half a Weatabix each person.
Useful Websites
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_banana_diet#:~:text=Users%20can%20have%20one%20or,(17%20kg)%20in%20weight.
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