Airport Travel: Hood River, OR > Austin, TX and beyond

My last post touched on all my favorite places in the vegan-friendly city of Portland, OR. Today, I'll be taking you through another bout of airport travel from PDX to SLC and finally to my temporary destination of Austin, TX.

On the morning of my flight, I woke up extra early to allow myself ample time for airplane food preparation:

 A green smoothie and a salad. 

The green smoothie consisted simply of 5 ripe bananas, 3 leaves of purple kale, and 1.5 cups of water blended to perfection in your standard, run-of-the-mill Oster blender. You'd be surprised how delicious this tastes without any added sweeteners, but you can always add a touch of stevia or honey to brighten it up. This blender works so much better than the pitiful Magic Bullet that we were using in the van (no chunks!). I saved my dino kale stems from the day before and added them into this smoothie as well.

The remaining kale was used in my sea palm salad.

Sea palm is a sea vegetable found off the Oregon and California coast. It is high in minerals like iodine and calcium and also contains zinc, boron, selenium as well as vitamins A, C, E, and B12. It is not a significant source of B12, however. I recommend getting B12 injections or supplementing with a quality B12 source like my newest discovery, the Healthy Habits B12 patch. That goes for carnivores and herbivores alike. Why? Because this important vitamin is nearly as ubiquitously deficient as vitamin D (don't quote me on that). B12 not only aids in the production of red blood cells and protects us from anemia, it is also responsible for the creation of myelin, a protective layer that forms around nerve cells and shields them from damage. People suffering from multiple sclerosis have a degeneration of myelin, which leads to a loss in motor skills. Another important function B12 carries out (with the help of folic acid) is the conversion of the amino acid homocysteine into methionine. This process is important because an overabundance of homocysteine leads to blood clots, clogged arteries, and stroke. Methionine assists in the break down of fats, detox of the liver, and fights free radicals by releasing antioxidant sulfur compounds. Wow, discussing the nutrient properties of foods can really drag things out. Moving on...

...up! Flying over Portland.

In-flight food and reading material (kale, sea palm, mushrooms, snow peas, nutritional yeast, low-fat organic vinaigrette)

And then a lovely descent into Salt Lake City.

I want to be on that plane. The Sky West party plane.

And this just got me all riled up - "natural snacks"

Let's see how healthy and natural these snacks really are:

Cherry Sours

Unfortunately, I can't read the blurry ingredients.

Milk Chocolate Peanuts

This contains the word "artificial" directly in the ingredient list - vanilla flavor (artificial flavor).

Honey Mustard Mix

I see monosodium glutamate, the dreaded MSG. What else? FD&C Blue No. 1, FD&C Yellow No. 5 - Not so natural after all.

Mango Slices

This contains sulfur dioxide and as if that wasn't enough color retention, yellow 5 and yellow 6 were also added for good measure.

Just Nuts

To me this means no oil or added salt, however corn oil, peanut oil, and salt were all added to this batch of "just nuts". 

I set up shop at the Delta station - free wifi at the SLC airport.

I arrived in Austin around 11:00 PM that night, took a 3-hour nap and woke up to someone knocking on the van at 3 o'clock in the morning. Stay tuned for my next post to find out what happened next!

To be continued...