When traveling, eating gluten free can be challenging.  Especially if you have Celiac and have to be extra careful.  I recently went on a quick business trip to Orlando Florida.  To feel safe I carried along with me several prepackaged foods that didn’t need to be refrigerated as well as used FindMeGlutenFree to find local restaurants to eat at.

For the prepackaged foods, I like to find compact but protein rich foods.  For this trip I carried 3 different brands.  I’m not a big breakfast fan, so I love the NoGii protein bars for this:

I also love the Kind bars as well.  My favorite flavors are the Peanut Butter and Chocolate as well as the Mocha flavors.

For lunches/Dinner I use the GoPicnic meals.  I got in too late on the first day to go anywhere to eat so I ate one of each of these flavors.  Both I find very tasty!  However the Pepperoni one is my favorite.  The Baja Nut blend in both is excellent!  I get both of these using Amazon’s Subscribe & Save to get the price down to about $3.50 each.  I can’t seem to find these locally yet.

Both of those are about 350 calories and provide a good bit of protein and ‘slow’ carbs. They fill me up pretty well.

For the next day I just ate a NoGii for breakfast since I’m not a big fan of eating much in the morning.  I had researched the previous night some good local restaurants to go to for lunch as my event didn’t start till 1pm.  Unfortunately in downtown Orlando, there isn’t much within walking distance.  I was lucky to find the Dandelion Communitea Cafe within a mile of my hotel.  I think the guy at the counter thought I was crazy walking a mile in the heat to it, but hey, if it’s rated pretty safe to eat, it’s worth it!  This cafe had great  reviews on being Celiac friendly.  If you have Celiac and use FindMeGlutenFree you really have to be careful anymore to use the ones marked as Celiac Friendly.  There are many options on there that just serve gluten free foods that aren’t safe enough.

I had this awesome bowl for lunch there.  It had a spring mix, black beans, carrots, cucumbers, sunflower seeds, quinoa, and a vegan ranch dressing (which was delicious!)

The Cafe looked like it would fit right into Athens Ohio.  I snapped a quick photo of one of the eating areas.  It reminded me of Casa some!

The event lasted till about 8pm so I had a NoGii and Kind bar with me to snack on till I could get some dinner.  I ‘braved’ Pizza Hut’s Gluten free pizza.  I say braved because I tried a pizza in the Athens Pizza Hut and I got super sick!  It was a new thing though for them and I don’t think they were fully trained because I watched them package my order and almost cut the pizza with the generic pizza cutter, etc.  The guy really didn’t know what he was doing.

However I was hoping that the Orlando Pizza Hut would be more careful given it was a full Pizza Hut and the company has had a lot more time to practice the Gluten Free certified routine they are supposed to use.  I also didn’t feel comfortable walking anywhere alone that late at night so delivery pizza sounded like a good option.  I will say that the pizza was delicious and didn’t bother me much if at all!  Expensive for a tiny pizza but it was worth it!

For the flight back I have packed another GoPicnic, NoGii and a Kind bar just in case I am starving on the plane.  Always read labels too!  The nuts on SouthWest planes are processed with wheat and other allergens.  I was glad I checked before I ate them on the way down!

Good luck on your travels!