Vegetarian's guide to the universe - travel advice for vegetarians

Vegetarian Times, July, 2000 by Susan Shumaker, Than Saffel

Everything you need to know about healthy eats wherever you land

Ah, vacation! All year you've been looking forward to this restful week, this rare occasion when you can awaken to the sound of birds instead of the alarm and dive into a novel rather than productivity reports.

At an altitude of 30,000 feet, you settle into your seat and close your eyes, dreaming of the pleasures that await you. Moments later, an airline attendant taps your shoulder. You open your eyes to see her smiling mouth form the words "Chicken or beef?." Uh-oh. The perfect vacation is already being compromised; you suddenly realize that you, a new vegetarian, are no longer Jane Q. Traveler.

You'll soon learn that the most important thing a vegetarian can do is to be prepared, whether you're flying, driving, taking the train or eating out. Here are a few pointers to help you have the vacation of your dreams.

The Veg-Friendly Skies

If your flight includes meal service (many flights these days don't), you'll need to request a vegetarian meal when making your reservation. The nice thing about requesting a special meal is that while everyone else is waiting for the food cart to inch its way down the aisle, you're already digging in. The bad part is that, sometimes, you'd rather be digging into just about anything else--including your seat flotation device.

Let's face it: Keeping vegetarians happy is way down on the priority list of most airline menu planners, sandwiched somewhere between flavor and freshness. For convenience's sake, many carriers go with a lowest-common-denominator approach, providing a bland, generic meal guaranteed to offend no one: white rice, microwaved vegetables, a packet of chemicals masquerading as soy sauce and six pathetic irradiated grapes for dessert. Not to be the voice of doom, but to top it all off, the chances of your meal making it on board and to your seat aren't great.

Thankfully, all of the above is changing. With vegetarian meals accounting for close to 50 percent of all special meal requests, the airlines are getting their acts together, hiring internationally acclaimed chefs like Alice Waters and Todd English to design their menus. Some carriers even offer up to eight different vegetarian options a day.

If you fly, make your vegetarian meal request when you book your flight. If you've forgotten to do so, be sure to make it at least 24 hours in advance, a requirement for most carriers. (In fact, it's always a good idea to reconfirm your special order the day before you fly.) And if you still find yourself meal-less, talk to the attendants onboard. Often they will be able to come up with a creative meal of side dishes from the extra first-class and coach meals in stowage.

Taking the Train

If you prefer to experience the landscape as you travel, consider going by rail. Given a 72-hour-advance notice, Amtrak's overnight Auto Train and long-distance passenger trains provide adequate meals for vegetarians with the possible exception of breakfast, when vegans will likely be left in the lurch.

The customary vegetarian dinner on a long-distance train is the "Veggie Medley": sugar snap peas, corn on the cob and a choice of sweet potato casserole or garlic mashed potatoes. With plenty of advance nudging, Amtrak food service will toss in some other goodies, like penne pasta primavera or veggie burgers, at lunchtime.

The Auto Train usually sports two dining cars--first-class and coach. In the former, a vegan dinner of vegetarian lo mein and a vegetable spring roll is available upon request. Stir-fried vegetables over rice and a very dairy vegetarian lasagna are the choices in coach.

Staying Healthy on the Highway

Wouldn't it be nice if you could find an abundance of healthful fast-food restaurants dotting America's highways and if every off-ramp yielded a cornucopia of convenient meatless dining options? Although there are rumors of one such startup in San Francisco, the dawning of that happy day seems far off.

In the meantime, it is possible to find good vegetarian restaurants while traveling, with some help from Vegetarian Journal's Guide to Natural Foods Restaurants (Avery Publishing Group, 1998), which lists more than 2,000 restaurants, delis and juice bars across the United States. If you can be flexible about mealtimes, you're sure to find a healthful option somewhere along your route. Be sure to call ahead to verify opening times and get directions, and to keep a good atlas handy for locating the restaurant while driving.

For a speedier, and equally delicious meal, find out if a natural or organic food store is on your route. Many have in-store deli counters or restaurants, where you can pick up fabulous salads and nutritious prepared foods. An excellent source for finding natural groceries with deli counters is The Tofu Tollbooth, available from Ceres Press/Ardwork Press; (888) 804-8848. Most of the co-ops and markets listed are within a few miles off the highway.

Thanks to a shift in America's eating habits, more and more fast-food chains are providing meatless options. We like to think of these as "compromise foods"--they aren't necessarily healthful, or haute cuisine, but at least they don't contain meat. Unless you've taken a quick detour to the United Kingdom, you aren't likely to find any veggie burgers on the menus at Burger King or McDonald's. But you will find tossed garden salads, veg-friendly french fries and even a vegan apple pie.