Saturday, October 16, 2010

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...

8 comments:

  1. Hello! I enjoy reading your blog. Just found it today. I think I saw you joined Viva La Vegan meetup group and I looked at your info and it listed the blog there. I am already vegan and starting to eat more raw.

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  2. I'm glad you are enjoying it. So you live in Portland?

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  3. Lol, I don't even have to read the ingredients to know that those cherry sours are not even close to resembling food. :)

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  4. sweet blogg!!

    I was wondering with the sea palm how you got it to that soaked, wet manner on the plate. I bought a huge amount of kelp that literally looks like it was taken out of the ocean, it's covered in salt and sand, and I'm not sure what to do with it! but i want to eat it! lol

    amy :)

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  5. Amy,

    I bought the sea palm from People's Food Co-op and it had previously been cleaned and dried so there weren't any sand particles or seashells attached. All I had to do was let it soak in some filtered water for about 15 minutes so it would soften up and expand.

    When you're ready to use your kelp, I would just make sure to let it soak for at least 15 minutes (longer would even be better) and then make sure you rinse it a couple of times to make sure the grime is removed.

    Thanks for the comment :)

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  6. Very interesting combination of kale and banana...I wouldn't have thought to mix the two. ;)

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  7. Having just returned from a fast followed by attempt to go raw in Thailand I love the commitment of your journey here. (Thais are food-obsessed so on one hand going raw is easy - lots of street sellers with good stuff, but on the other hand temptations of cooked food smells are everywhere).

    Your Seal Palm looks like the thing we call Kelp here in Australia - it also looks very fresh. Did you just harvest it yourself or is it a shop product?

    All the best for your travels.

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