Touring as a Vegan
 

For a variety of reasons I have recently become a vegetarian, vegan. I'm an experienced self contained bicycle tourist. My question, have any of you found maintaining a vegan diet difficult on tour. Many of the great little towns across the fruited plane could be bereft of vegan selection in local eateries. Any help from the group? db

I would be prepared to cook. Plan on carrying some staples with you to get you through the lean areas. Keep in mind what your body needs and come up with some simple, basic meals from easily obtainable ingredients. If you can come up with some grain-based or pasta-based meals that travel well and can supplemented with veggies that you find en route, that might be ideal.

I'm a vegetarian, not a vegan, and I can usually find at least one thing to eat where ever I stop, I don't know if that'd be the case if I were vegan. I already try to keep food on me in case nothing palatable shows up on the road. I imagine with a vegan diet, that'd be doubly necessary. There's stuff in my bag that I hope not to eat, but it looks more and more tasty as time goes by without a decent food stop.

One specific item I've carried is single meal, heat and eat, Indian dishes. I do believe at least some of them are vegan. There are two brands, and neither of them are leaping to mind right now, but I bet someone will come up with them because I probably heard about them here.

Are talking about touring in America? It all depends on where you are.

In general, it's like other kinds of vegan travel. You will probably have decent restaurant options in cities, in small towns, maybe not. If you have cooking gear it's fairly easy to get by as long as you have decent access to food. In the northeast US it's easy, supermarkets are everywhere.

It varies by country. I toured for 8 months in South America recently. It is very, very difficult to be vegetarian, and harder to be vegan there. I rarely ate in restaurants, except for in major cities (Lima, Quito, Santiago) where vegetarian restaurants existed. I cooked my own dinner almost every night. In many rural places, there was almost no produce, like southern patagonia, where nothing really grows. They eat sheep. Still, I managed, I ate lots of pasta, potatoes, breads, jam, that sort of thing.

The hardest thing about being vegan and touring is turning down food. Depending where you are, it is fairly common to be invited into someone's home for a meal. It's hard to turn down the kindness of strangers. I think I would have stayed with more families in small villages in South America, if I wasn't worried about insulting them by turning down food. You also miss out on a lot of cultural exchanges, people like to talk about food. That's life as a vegan in general, but I find I notice it a lot more when I'm traveling.

Also, I should add, peanut butter and jelly is great cycle touring food.

Another vegetarian, I'd always have a backup meal or two, maybe just a jar of peanut butter and a pack of tortillas in the bottom of a pannier, just in case you find yourself needing food. It's not a bad idea even if you don't have dietary restrictions; I've rolled in to town after all the restaurants have closed.

If you have emergency food and aren't afraid to eat it, then the worst that can really happen is a few to many meals of peanut butter. A lot of smaller places can probably make you something vegan if you ask nicely.

A little off topic, sorry. I am not a vegan, but a quick question to the OP: As a vegan do you find consume enough calories while touring? I found during my meat light/less times (hiking), I can't stop eating, constantly hungry. Random curiosity, thanks.

Peanut butter and Nutella are quite possibly the most important foods ever. They go well on everything, bread, pancakes, chips, (yes, meat), nuts, fruit, anything you could think of.......

Oatmeal is a good meal too.

Another off-topic comment: Have you seen "Ride the Divide"?
It's a documentary about the 2009 MTB race from Canada to Mexico, along the Rocky Mountains. Anyway, one of the racers had the nickname "Super Vegan." He had some extra challenges finding stuff to eat at gas stations, along the way (a common practice in this race).

I've been a vegan for 25 years or so. My basic menu on tour is:

Morning: Muesli with soja milk or apple juice,
During the day: Peanut butter sandwiches, Bananas or other fresh fruit, Trail mix or peanuts, Orange juice
Evening. Rice and a tin of beans, olive oil and tabasco.

If I find somewhere that sells tofu, or texturised soja protein, then that gets to be a luxury meal. Pasta occasionally...

I eat this day in, and day out on tour, for months on end. Cheap and nutritious. I think I could live on it forever :D

edit: I cook on a mini trangia, and eat out of the pot.

Also Vegan.... I second the above... I'd add Humus since you can get it as just about any mid sized store these days. I tend to do lots of pasta while on tour as well.

Also, if a town has a taco bell i grab a 7 layer with 2 missing(cheese and sour cream)... when I just want to be lazy.

Learning how to eat well without cooking has been a great help for me, on or off tour.

Oats are a great food, and are easy to find. Quick oats are a bit better, for me, than the thicker rolled oats. Neither of these need additional cooking. Soaking, even for a short time, softens them well. You can also soak them for hours, and muesli can be very good -- better than most people in this country realize. It's more widely appreciated in some parts of Europe.

I usually soak mine in water, or water plus soy milk. I add raisins and let them soak and plump up. When ready to eat, I top it with mashed or pureed bananas, and sprinkle with brown sugar, and then add a little vanilla soy milk. It's a great meal.

Oats can also be used for savory dishes, and as a main ingredient in a wide variety of trail mixes.

I attempted Vegetarian touring in the late 80's and early 90's. Relatively easy on the west coast. Also fairly easy east coast New Jersey to Maine. Middle of the country I found nearly impossible to comply (except Boulder, CO!). Nowadays, with the prevalence of Subways and Smoothie shops, power bars and energy drinks found in some very small towns, I think I could even do it stove free. I like the suggestions given by others above. I might add that a head of cabbage will last weeks in a pannier bottom wrapped in a couple of bags if the temps are reasonable. I also cook on a mini Trangia - eat from the pot.

OK, the biggest problem I had with staying vegetarian (not vegan) was three or four nights a week, camping neighbors in RVs would deliver meals to me to be nice. Almost every time the meal had lots of meat and dairy. Fried chicken, BBQ Ribs, even steak and seafood, potato salad, mac-n-cheese, etc. Since my trips tend to last six or seven months, it makes sense to take advantage of free food. If someone hands free, hot, delicious food to me, I eat it and show gratitude. That's my rule.

Not vegan or even vegetarian, but I do eat a lot more veggies than the average American. I had little problem finding veggies along the road on my last two long haul tours in the US. I too use a small stove and eat out of the pot. Nothing better to me than beans and rice. FWIW I would watch those tortillas...a lot of them have lard in them. ;)

Aaron :)

Also, most clif bars are vegan as well... Available just about everywhere for a quick snack that doesn't turn to goo in the heat.

You might want to breathe through your nose, unless bugs are okay for vegans.

good one... got me. sure the person asking the question has heard plenty of intelligent comments like this before.:thumb:

Just trying to keep myself entertained. The OP can not eat whatever he wants as far as I'm concerned. :)

Here are his final notes on trying to eat a raw/vegan diet on the Tour Divide. If he can do this well on an event where most of your meals come from gas stations you should have not trouble on a more relaxed tour where a little extra weight is not a huge issue like it would be at "race pace" adrian_stingaciu_make_some_final_reflections

I met a vegan on tour who soaked dried beans in a vacume flask all day and was able to cook them in the evening.

I used a rubber maid container, I also have a steel pot with a clamp on lid, just had to make sure it stayed upright...

Aaron :)

Saw it last winter. Totally forgot about that guy. I rode into and spent the night in Butte during the summer. Remember the scene at Pork Chop John's where the woman has a bad experience with the double pork shop sandwich? I went to their Old Town location and had to try one. That sandwich is highly overrated. Cheap, yellow mustard. Plain, white onions. Low-end pickles. Cheap bun. I can see why it might not sit well with some people. I have an iron stomach so I was o.k.

Works well. If you have the patience, black-eye beans can be cooked (45 mins) without pre-soak. Then refry them in olive oil with garlic... yummy

I'm usually too beat to bother, just open a tin of beans and throw 'em in the pot when the rice is done.

Good call on the humus kyakdiver. :)

I'll add that many places it is kind of hard to find if in remote rural towns.

Dried hummus (or is it called instant hummus?), while even harder to find, is pretty good and travels very well. It reconstitutes pretty much instantly. If you run across it it might be worth stocking up a bit.

It's worth searching for "vegan" on CouchSurfing or Warm Showers. I've had much better responses from vegans when traveling than from non-vegans. I suspect that vegans in more remote places don't know that many other vegans nearby, which means you'll be welcomed with enthusiasm and a great meal. That's a double win because those places are where you'd otherwise have fewer food options.

Most supermarkets in urban and suburban areas at least have things like soymilk and clif bars, but even if they don't my staple meal is a bowl of oatmeal. I'm allergic to most nuts so my basic lunch is two hummus and avocado sandwiches (though avocado is expensive in some areas). My biggest mistake has been limiting my emergency food to clif bars; after a few too many of those things you won't want to see another one for months!

Check sites like happycow.net to fins vegan-friendly supermarkets and restaurants.

If you are riding 50+ miles a day, sometimes under adverse conditions, is that enough protein to sustain you day in and day out?

I eat plenty of tinned beans, oats, rice and lentil burriots. Pasta and tomato sauce is doable too. I'm just a vegetarian but I don't eat a lot of eggs and dairy on tour. Peanut butter cooked into oats is a great way to start the day. Peanut butter and jam sandwiches are great too. Multivitamins are cheap enough too if you are worried about vitamins and minerals.