Eating Sugar on the Road

August 28, 2010 ↓ Comments (2)

It’s hard to stay on the wagon when you’re wagon goes off your usual trail.

I’m on my way home after a week-long college residency. While away, students eat in the cafeteria located on campus. The food isn’t terrible, but eating three square meals a day in that place gets difficult, especially for someone who’s off sugar.

The dessert table is located right by the doorway of the serving area so everyone has to pass it on the way to the dining hall. I always noticed when they had chocolate snacks such as ice cream or brownies.

Dessert, eat all you want.

While it’s easy for me to avoid dessert, and thus the sugars in the desserts, what’s not easy is avoiding added sweeteners in the actual meal. Based on how I felt, and judging from the labels on the foods for sale in the restaurant supply store near my home, there’s most likely added sugar in everything the cafeteria served.

Bread of course has sugar (I still eat dinner rolls). Soups often have added sugars as lots of restaurant soups are purchased pre-made. Salad dressing (I opt for oil and vinegar if there’s any question), yogurt, granola, cereal, waffles, pancakes, soy milk and any number of flavored cooking sauces contain corn syrup and/or added sugars of various kinds.

But that’s all behind me now. This past week was my last full residency and so I’ll never have to spend a week eating that food again. Yeah!

Now I’m on my ride home. If you don’t know, I’m bicycling from Port Townsend, Washington to Portland, Oregon. This means I’m still at the mercy of restaurant food for two more days.

Last night I stopped in a local restaurant and got a Garden Burger with a side salad. The salad was weak. The waitress handed me a tray of salad dressings all of which contained sugar.

Salad?

The Garden Burger was terrible! The french fries were so salty I used Ketchup on them. That’s sugar or corn syrup in my system. The fries are basically poison. I was hungry though and so I ate everything. The meal was so salty it made me thirsty for the rest of the night.

All gone.

No more!

Today I ate fruit and vegetables. I also eat Subway because they sell the Veggie Delight sandwich, which is just assorted vegetables. The ingredients are always pretty fresh, the bread does not cause me any trouble and I never feel bad after eating one of those sandwiches.

At this point I can’t wait to get home and eat the foods that I know and love. It’s just a matter of days now.

Comments · Eating Sugar on the Road

ellendiane
Aug 30, 2010

At least you were burning off calories- Why the bike trip??? Hidden sugar is everywhere- Last nite I had a T of allnatural Polaner’s black cherry jam& a little peanut butter- (smart balance-has sugar:( Today is a new day!!! Be careful& love your posts-best regards, ellend

DavidVanadia
Aug 30, 2010

I’m riding to protest the BP oil disaster and to see if I can do “car things” without a car.

Glad you’re back in the game. I count on you , you know. Peanut butter, can’t live without it!