WHAT HE DOESN'T HAVE DURING THE WEEK

Let's talk about the drinks and food he doesn't have during the week.

Why does he limit himself? He doesn't want to gain fat just lean muscle to get stronger. It is very hard to do on the road.

He never goes to a fast food place. So no coffee at all. The 3 whites are out: no milk, no white flour based food, (no bread at all on the road.) and no white sugar. I don't think he ever needed to sweeten anything at all ever during the week. 

He eats fish during the week and some chicken. No pork or beef on the road.

No traditional side dishes like rice or potatoes either baked or fried. No chips.

No donuts or cookies or other traditional desserts.

Only the food that is listed on the side. And it's enough. He won't get hungry, and won't feel sluggish while digesting all day. 

Happy Longer Life!

Nuts and Seed Mix

My Trucker keeps a container of this mix next to him so when he really needs to munch on something, he has goodies to reach for.
You can buy mixes ready made but I do not recommend them. They are salty, have some dried fruit that is high in sugar calories that you don't need when doing a sitting job.
I buy unsalted, raw or roasted on low heat so the heat doesn't kill the goodness of the nuts.
Now remember, although nuts and seeds are very important for their good fat, protein and vitamin-mineral content, they are high in calories so you only need a handful a day.
He mixes Brazil nuts, pumpkin seeds, almonds, and filberts.
I also recommend some walnuts into your mix.
In one day you are advised to have up to 20 almonds or 9 walnuts or 5 Brazil nuts.
So he has a few of each every day to keep a nice balanced diet.
For Your Health!

A Salad a Day

My Trucker has a nice mixed salad with some tuna or eggs every day.

What we need: 

1 bag of Romaine mix (short cuts here we go)

1 bag of coleslaw mix

1 small bag of carrot, cauliflower and broccoli mix

grape tomatoes

1 bunch of green onions

He eats his salad on a paper plate in his car, so our challenge is to prepare the salad upside down so when he transfers it onto his plate, it looks right.

I make 5 portions.

I lay some coleslaw on the bottom, put 4 grape tomatoes in, cut up the green onion and divide them between the salads, cut some broccoli, cauliflower and carrot rings.

I finish it up with the romaine mix on top of each.

He doesn't need any salad dressing because he uses the liquid in the tuna. At times he keeps some olive oil in the truck and uses a spoonful on the salad.

Yummy! And I am not kidding!

Eggs and Cheese

I make 14 hard boiled eggs and put 2 in each spinach puree (4 portions all together) and 6 just separately.
He has 1 hard boiled eggs a day with or without a salad.
We get nice cheese he likes and cut it into 1 oz pieces. (Size of your thumb)
He munches on 1 a day.

Spinach Puree with Eggs

I buy frozen spinach (300 grams) and I cook it from frozen in a cup of water for an extra 15 minutes after it nicely melted.
I only put some chicken soup base in.
After it cooled down, I blend it and put it in containers. It makes 2 portions.
I put 2 hard boiled eggs into it. Good hot or cold.
Enjoy.

Cabbage Soup

The main challenge is not to use any oil or greasy stuff in soup. That doesn't taste good if it needs to be consumed cold. Otherwise this soup is almost as great cold or hot.
 I use filtered water for everything that will be consumed by us.
We use the following but feel free to add whatever vegetables you might have at home.
1 red onion
1 bag of coleslaw mix (yes, short cut again)
Some carrots, broccoli and cauliflower,
a tomato,
a potato (cut up)
The followings have healthy properties:
leeks, green onion, bell pepper, celery, parsley.
You can use some of your favourite spices as well.
I let it simmer for a good hour when I add some soup base to it for taste.
When it cooled down, I put some into a container and I blend the rest. He likes the soup in a container for the first day but then the following days he drinks it from a bottle on the road. So after all is blended (I put in the onion and all) I put it in bottles (400 ml) and cool it further. I would have the left over for myself. Healthy and good for your waistline.

Cottage Cheese Delight

Cottage cheese is very good for you but the regular tub of it is far from the thing our taste buds could appreciate. So we use a different kind of cottage cheese.

Soak a half a cup of raisins in filtered water.
We use Pressed Dry Cottage Cheese (Western, 500g)
In a medium bowl we mash the cottage cheese with a fork.
Add some sour cream until the texture is smooth.
Add honey to sweeten, add raisins. (Experiment with the taste, too sweet is not good for you)
For extra indulgence we add chocolate powder and sweetened coconut to it.
Other times we add shaved chocolate or small M&Ms.
Keep it in fridge.

This fills two 500 ml containers. He just has 2 tablespoons at a time to satisfy his need for a dessert.

Easy-to-make Cold Fruit Soup

You could use real fruit but to make it easy on myself through the years, I have been using canned fruit. 

We like the following blend of fruit:

  1 can of peach slices in light syrup (saving on the cutting up)

  1 can of pear (I could only find halves so I quickly slices them)

  1 small can of apricot (Also halves so slicing is good)

  1 jar of red sour pitted cherries in light syrup (I get it from the international isle because it is from either   

       Hungary or Croatia - Go Hungarians!)

  1 jar of apple sauce

 When I use all the fruit and the syrup, I only need to add a cup or two filtered water. 

I add 2 tablespoon of sugar or honey 

a dash of cinnamon and ground cloves.

I bring it to boil and the meantime I mix 1 tablespoon of flour with 2 tablespoon of 1% sour cream for thickness.

I add a few tablespoon of liquid from the pot to nicely smooth the flour in.

After boiling I add the thickening mix and stir it in. When it boils again I remove the foam and turn off the heat.

After it cooled down in the pot I portion it out and and keep it in the fridge. It's great cold!

My boys love it too.

If you use the 796ml cans of peach, pear and apple sauce, it makes 9 portions of about 450 ml each.

He takes 5 for the road.

Liquid food

We tend to think that if something is drinkable, we call it a drink. If we need to use a spoon or fork to eat or we need to chew on it, we call it food.

Well, sorry to burst your bubble but it isn't so at all. Probably after my last two posts you can guess that I will tell you that your only drink is water. Liquid mixes are there for you to enjoy but has nothing to do with what is good for you.

So if you drink milk or pure fruit juice, you drink or eat?

Milk, fruit or vegetable juice, soy, rice or almond drinks are actually considered food.

So what is food than? Food supplies your body with nutrition (carbohydrates, proteins, fat) and necessary vitamins and minerals. In that sense it doesn't matter how you take it; blended, stirred or shaken, cup-of-soup, from a glass, from a bowl, from a plate, with a spoon, knife or chopsticks.

So you have your coffee with triple milk and some fruit juice?

Enjoy your meal.

Drinks other than water

I praised water in my previous post and it is my belief that water (or tea without anything in it) is our only real drink. 

Of course cafes and drink companies would like you to think otherwise. They come up with new flavors, new packaging, hot or cold, sweet or bitter, any way you like it.

Just Remember: DRINK IS TO HELP YOUR BLOOD SUPPLY YOUR CELLS WITH OXYGEN AND NUTRITION. IT IS ONLY the NON-CALORIC WATER.

Anything else only caters to your taste buds and gives you pleasure. They have nothing to do with quenching your thirst. Actually, most of them dry you out. Like coffee or alcoholic drinks, you should actually drink a glass of water along with them to keep your body in good order. 

So you are welcome to have some coffee or ginger ale or a beer on the weekend just be aware - you don't drink it because you need it.

They are not all without benefits though.

Coffee has some beneficial oils when it is fresh like a nice espresso always freshly brewed. Timmy's Always Fresh is only good for you if you drink it within the 20 minutes it was made not just sold to you within that time. Adding sugar - just for your taste buds, adding milk - could be OK (see my next post about liquid food), adding creme - well, sorry, that can even hurt you. 

Wine, oh, yes, it's great if you drink no more than a glass a day. Resveratrol naturally found in wine is proven to be good for your cardiovascular system. But don't buy into the hype to get it in supplements.

What about fruit drinks? Sorry that has nothing to do with your thirst either. It has a lot of sugar you don't need but no real fruit. Just so called empty calories you don't need. 

All in all stick with water and water rich fruit and vegetables and enjoy the rest at you own guilt.

I personally love my espresso and my glass of wine on occasions.

Cheeers.

Home made yogurt

You can buy yogurt makers at different price range, I bought Total Chef Yogurt maker for 30 some dollars.

I buy yogurt starter called  Yogourmet from Rainbow Natural store (kept in the fridge). It takes an hour to heat up the milk and cool it to room temperature and then another 11 hours in the maker. I keep it there overnight. You can put flavors in it but we like it natural with blueberries. (I put 10-14 pieces and some chocolate shave in each, depending on the size. 

When he is ready to eat it, he migh puts in some ALL BRAN Buds (11 grams of fibre per portion, 3 grams of protein) 

Green drink

You need : 1 field cucumber
                  3 handful of spinach leaves (I buy them in a bag, cleaned, not the baby - that's too expensive)
                  1 green apple
                  1/2 orange
                  1 banana
                  1 lemon
                  1 stalk of celery
                  some parsley
                  a bit of ginger
                  I use honey to sweeten
You need a blender and small juice bottles 250-300 ml each

Clean all ingredients. Peel and chop field cucumber, green apple, orange and banana. Chop up celery.
I buy tube of ginger and parsley to be kept in the fridge or the freezer. So I only need a medium size squeeze from each.
I squeeze the lemon juice.
I put some spinach leaves and the chopped up ingredients into the blender. I add a cup of filtered water and the lemon juice with a good squeeze of honey, the ginger and the parsley. I top it up with spinach leaves and blend it all together.

I fill up the plastic juice bottles. I chill them for about 15 minutes in the freezer just because it needs to be cold to keep. After that I transfer the bottles to the fridge.
I know that the juice would be best fresh every day but what can a trucker do?

Our weekend routine

Our time together is very short and precious. My Trucker comes home early Friday afternoon and leaves home at 11 am on Sunday. You see, he's not even home for 2 days. We need to squeeze in some family time, some our time, some entertainment, some time to do his workouts. But most importantly, we need to prepare everything for his following work week. Oh yes, he needs to catch up with his sleep after working different times of the day during the week. So as strange as it is, we relax on Friday night and do most of our work Saturday night. It used to be very demanding but by now we worked out all the details and work together to prepare.

I will start with his menu for the week. it takes about 4-5 hours and I integrate it into my weekend cooking so my workload is not more than it is necessary.  He cuts the fruit and vegetables for the green drink, my son makes the cottage cheese delight mix, and other small tasks, I make the soup, spinach and the yogurt and the blending. So it is a true team work.

What he takes:

Soup - 1 for every day - cold fruit soup or cabbage and vegetable soup or pea soup

Yogurt - 1 for every day - home made, with blueberries

Cooked spinach with 2 eggs - 3 portions

Cottage cheese blend - 4 x 500 ml container

Green drink - 5 small bottles

Salad mix - one for every day

Mini carrots to munch on

Cooked eggs - 6

Cheese portions - 6

He buys 3 different apples about 10 each with a small container of grapes or strawberries for the road.

He fills up his pill case with vitamins and supplements.

He takes ginger candies.

He keeps his canned of tuna and sardines in the truck.
There is a small container of nuts beside him in the truck as well as some gums.

He keeps some protein bars and small bits of dark chocolate there too.

He takes at least 12 bottles of 500 ml water with him to drink.
2 liters of tap water to rinse the containers. (We reuse the food containers)