Thursday, March 01, 2012

Hummus On The Go! & Vegan Travel Tips

Everyone knows that vegans would keel over and die of malnutrition and general heartbreak if they had to live a life without hummus. Hummus is to vegans as water is to fish. So, let me recommend these little hummus packets from Wild Garden. I really love them!

Little Hummus Packets from Wild Garden

Here are some of the things I love about these:
~ less than 3 oz. means you can take them on the plane with you
~ actually very tasty hummus: lemony and garlicky!
~ great ingredients: Chickpeas, sesame paste, water, sea salt, natural spices, citric acid
Not bad for a packaged product!
~ doesn't require refrigeration

Now, obviously, at home I usually make my own hummus - it's easy and delicious to do. But, I really, really love these hummus packets for traveling. They are easy to transport, easy to open, a perfect serving size, nutritious, tasty, and most of all, you are eating REAL FOOD - which can be hard sometime for a traveling vegan.

I brought a ton of these with my on my recent trip to rural Austria in the dead of winter (not generally renowned as a super vegan-friendly situation) - I ate at least one packet every day, and also was grateful to have them with me on the plane. Totally delicious!

(Also! Wild Garden is a cool company. When I had a PPK friend in the military who was really struggling at staying vegan while serving, I wrote to them for help & they sent her a big box FULL of these little packets. That's rad!)

Speaking of my recent trip, and vegan traveling - here are a few of the things I took with me on my last trip:
~ hummus packets
~ McDougall dehydrated soup mixes
~ dried bean flakes from the bulk bins
~ Tabasco sauce: For adding to the bean flakes and soup mixes.
You gotta keep life interesting!
~ Starbucks coffee packets: SO great! Easy coffee on the go! Just add hot water.
(not pictured)
~ powdered soy milk for adding to coffee
~ Larabars: bars are always a good idea for travel. Easy, nutritious, calories
~ chocolate bars: especially if there won't be vegan desserts around,
this way you won't be too sad.

Some thoughts: The McDougall soup mixes come in big paper tubs which are to bulky for packing in the suitcase, so I transferred them to ziplock baggies and wrote the name of the soup on the outside. Even though they are billed as "healthy" soups, they are CRAZY high in sodium. So, after consulting with my aunt, we came up with the idea of using one spice packet over multiple servings, and that was great. For example, I used the Black Bean Soup with Lime spice packet for probably 3-4 bowls of soup (adding some of the black bean mix from the original packet, and also just a bunch of dehydrated black bean flakes). I'll definitely use this method again.

8 comments:

  1. Oh I love those little tubes! They would be awesome for traveling. I wish I could get something similar here. I usually end up with a big jar of peanut butter that I eat with carrots for a snack. Tasty too, but hummus would be better most of the time. I havn't really found any good vegan soup mixes here either, but I should work on making something similar myself.

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  2. I've never seen those hummus tubes! But I must find some for my next trip!!

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  3. These are such great ideas! I've noticed those shelf stable packs of hummus before, but I didn't see a reason for getting them. At home, I like making my own. However, it's a great idea to use them for travel, and how convenient that they're under 3 ounces. I've never used bean flakes before; although, I've seen them in the bulk bins at my co-op. Could you explain how you use them (amounts, etc.), and what kind of consistency they make in the soup?

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  4. It's sad that the hummus love doesn't spread to Germany. But lately I can get tubs at some stores, which is awesome!

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  6. Thank you so much for the nice comments everyone and great blog post. You can go to www.Wildgarden.biz for more information and also to order the hummus dip online, too. You should be able to find our latest list of stores by state that carry or have carried Wild garden Hummus Dip. (If a store doesn't have it, you can always ask the store manager to order some for you and they usually always will).
    Thank you again
    Ray Hanania
    www.WildGarden.biz
    (don't forget to check out our Wild Garden Hummus Dip Group on Facebook

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  7. I LOVE those hummus tubes! They're a special treat for me though, since I can't find them sold anywhere locally. I've been toying with making a giant bulk order online for a while... But then I resist the temptation, because there's so much hummus around and it's so easy to make, too. But I do miss that stuff...

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  8. Dried bean flakes are a genius idea for travel, especially if you're going to be somewhere you can only get plain salad or veggies. I've taken to carrying a few individual packets of Justin's nut butter on trips to add to bagels or oatmeal, I like that you get protein and fat and they taste so good it's like a decadent little treat.

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