Idaho Falls, Traveling, and Eating Right, Part 2

I love my five-mile run on the Snake River in Idaho Falls. It’s quirky. Thousands of geese of all ages, everywhere, and apparently it’s illegal to scare or chase them, Tennyson was informed. A shrine to a 16-year old girl who died three years ago. Man-made waterfalls. Saturday flea markets with people selling really weird stuff like homemade dog food.

I’ve run many times in so many places—the streets of downtown Paris, along many stretches of California and Hawaii and Florida beaches, through packs of dogs in Urubamba, Peru, last weekend along Lake Michigan. But truly the Snake is one of my all-time favorites.

When I travel, I take more stuff if it’s a road trip, and less if it’s on a plane. Lately on planes, I’ve been taking frozen pints of green smoothies and vegetable juices, packed in double Ziploc bags, and rolled up in jeans in the middle of my suitcase. It makes it to the hotel fridge before it thaws.

Here’s my road trip list, which caused us to never purchase food from a gas station, and never set foot in the hotel “Continental” breakfast. (Thank you to GSG readers who manage Le Ritz—beautiful suite overlooking the river, great value, we always stay there!)

(We did eat salads for lunch and dinner at a couple of restaurants, and once we splurged on spinach/artichoke dip and chips—I’m not promoting it, I’m just being truthful here.) So here’s what was in the cooler:

—Cooler with quarts (me) and pints (Tennyson) of green smoothie, and veggie juice from my Norwalk (beets, cukes, celery, greens, carrots)

—Gallon Ziploc bag of granola, with a pint of soaked/drained raw sunflower seeds, to add to the granola. With cups and spoons and a box of organic rice milk from Kirkland (Costco)

—a big tub of cut-up watermelon for the drive

—whole-grain crackers from Good Earth that Tennyson likes

—some maltitol-sweetened chocolate that I like (which won’t cause me to have to pay Matthew $10,000)

—apples, baggies of celery sticks, baggies of baby carrots

—pistachios

—dried fruit

—a cooler of alkaline water

—Ormus Greens and a shaker cup (I drink a pint of water, with greens in it, when I wake up)

Tennyson and I eat at Subway a lot when we travel. Whole-wheat bread, veggie sandwich (push them to put more, more, more spinach, bell peppers, onions, tomatoes, sprouts, and cucumbers, till it’s a big fat sandwich!), no condiments except brown mustard. We both eat a 12″ sandwich! Remember Colin Campbell, PhD from Cornell discovered, to his shock, published in The China Study, that those who eat 95% plants can eat 200 calories a day more than meat-eaters, and stay lean!

In Idaho Falls, after teaching a class where people bemoaned that they have no health food store, I found Scoresby Farm’s Market, with two locations. I bought a flat of strawberries, bags of cherries, pints of blueberries to add to our granola every morning, and a watermelon.

I had them wash all the fruit for me. Unfortunately they wouldn’t cut the watermelon because the law now requires them to ACID WASH knives and cutting boards with only certified acid wash, to cut melons. I guess there was some problem with melons recently, so as with so many other food issues, our government decides to overreact with chemicals and processes that take the life from our food. (Like pasteurizing all of California’s almonds and the federal government’s goals to irradiate much of our produce.) I ended up bringing the uncut watermelon home.

I took the flat of strawberries into the dugout and the whole team ate it. It’s the first whole food I’ve ever seen in a dugout, in 14 years of being a baseball mom. Except for what my boys are eating, of course, or what I occasionally send in there for everybody. Whatever Tennyson is eating is ALWAYS a big curiosity. Usually what you see is nachos, hot dogs, sodas, Gatorade, burgers, and candy. At the end of the game, with all the strawberry tops on the ground, it looked like somebody bled to death in there.

Scoresby Farm’s Market isn’t a health food store, at all. But there’s lots of produce, much of it locally grown, and I asked the manager,

“I’m an health activist from out of town. I spoke to 250 people last night in Idaho Falls, who say there are few options to get nutrient dense food around here. Would you be responsive to my readers asking you to find things for them and stock them? Like young Thai coconuts, for example? If I wrote about you on my blog?”

“Sure,” she said. “In fact, that’s how we ended up with the kale in here that you just noticed—our customers asked for it.”

Go, GSG readers! I have a feeling you had a hand in that. Muah! I love you! Bunches of kale are only $0.69 there!

I asked about organics, and the manager was able to tell me which produce was unsprayed (not organic certified) and “minimally sprayed.”

I hope that helps. Check out Scoresby’s, my I.F. friends!

Posted in: Lifestyle, Relationships, Whole Food