For school break, my son and I flew to Grammy and Grampy’s house in Ohio. Oh what fun we had! The Aquarium! The Train Museum! The Children’s Museum of Cincinnati. It’s good fun heading to a big city, but boy is it a wilderness of whole food.

This is modern America. Interstate 95 runs from Maine all the way down to Florida in one gigundous corridor of fast food franchise. This is true of every highway in every single state. For those of us who set an intention to eat seasonal, local, whole food that would be recognizable to our ancestors, the simple act of eating real food while away from home seems impossible.

Instead, there is a smorgasbord of highly processed, genetically-modified, pesticide-sprayed, federally-subsidized wheat accompanied by the meat and milk of extremely unlucky creatures and finished off with additives, preservatives and high fructose corn syrup. De-lish!

Hey, I did pretty well on the trip TO Ohio. I packed ample snacks and a big, grounding lunch that would mellow out a way-too-excited 4-year-old on an adventure. Sockeye salad with carrots and pickles on rice crackers, nuts, fruit, Lara Bars, some zinc lozenges to fend off the aircraft’s recirculated air in cold and flu season… We were feeling pretty good when we got there. Happy. Balanced.

While there, Grampy took my son on some adventures– just the two of them. So great! They went out to lunch! At McDonalds! I sort of shiver to think of it, but it was one of many assaults on my food values. At the Aquarium we ate nasty ChikNuggets and waffle fries and a salad covered in cold cuts and velveeta. Travelling is supposed to get you beyond your comfort zone. It’s GOOD for you in that way. But venturing into the realm of typical American food is basically never good for you, it’s just an exercise in choosing the lesser evil.

It’s true that I wish I had more control over our food choices, but loosening standards is the lesser evil sometimes. There IS no health food store there. Anywhere. And being overly anxious about your food isn’t good for digestion or health either. So I loosened up. But it’s interesting to note that it didn’t turn into a free for all. I didn’t just say “forget it” and have (or let him have) cocoa puffs for breakfast. (In fact I seemed to keep some control over breakfast.) And the rest of the time I just tried to make the least-worst choices. He didn’t get much sugar. He didn’t get special dinners made for him. I just aimed for whatever vegetables were on offer.

Eating gluten-free, Asian and Mexican restaurants seem to be the easiest choices. We ate out a bit. We cooked at home a bit with conventionally raised meats and fruits and vegetables. It worked, overall. Not too bad, really.

The finale, though, was being unprepared for the flight home. No stellar lunch this time. I had two hard boiled eggs, 3 chocolate covered strawberries and about 10 Lara Bars. My son was exhausted from a long week and we had to wake him up early and didn’t have time for a grounding breakfast. He ate some grapes on the way to the airport and didn’t want anything else. We got to the moment in the security screening process where everything was on the conveyor belt except his teddy bear …. and he refused to give it up. He went atomic on me when I eventually had to wrench it out of his arms. That was fun. Screaming, writhing on the floor, flailing for long minutes in a crowded, frenzied place. Yah.

“Aha!” I thought, “the chocolate covered strawberries!” What the hell, sugar, pesticides and all, it was the perfect least-worst choice at that moment. (7:45am) It did the trick. But now I was cowed. I had to get this kid something filling to endure the next 10 hours of travel.

Dairy. He doesn’t usually get much of that because of a past intolerance, so he loves it. I’m just not going to think too hard about all the reasons it’s gross. Conventional, feedlot dairy. Yogurt. Cheese sticks. I ended up spending $31 on food for the two of us at inflated, airport prices. For that I was able to get some homemade-seeming chicken soup and veggies and hummus– for which I was exceedingly grateful, with my new, more relaxed standards– and some overly sweet granola and more yogurt for my little dude.

Two years ago the dairy would not have been an option because it would have been so uncomfortable  for him to digest. Now he seems to be handling it better and it makes him full, and calm. That was worth it, temporarily. You bet.

It’s funny since my last blog was about how to get your kids to eat well and keep your standards high. I’d like to amend that to mean when it doesn’t drive you mental on a vacation.  High standards are a long, slow lifestyle choice.  Perhaps in one of my next blogs, I should talk about how to travel with kids and eat really well. Perhaps it would involve researching health food store locations ahead of time and pestering your hosts until they drive you the hour or three to get to it. Or maybe packing a box of food to send ahead. Or perhaps only visiting people who eat like Michael Pollan.

But at least part of the strategy is how to settle on a new, more relaxed approach, without all the standards being blown to smithereens under the pressure of the unfortunate status quo.

And then, the end goal is to change that status quo.

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