Traveling for Work: Eating Healthy

I've been traveling heavily for work recently, and in 6 short weeks I've realized that eating out and eating sandwiches is not going to work for me. I'm in my early 30s and realized in my late 20s that eating food from restaurants and even eating prepared food from grocery stores wreaks havoc with my digestion. I feel bloated and sluggish, I have low energy, there are issues of a gaseous nature that I won't divulge too much... And don't solve your digestion problems by popping a TUMS in your mouth. Do yourself and your longevity a favour and eat healthy. Solve the problem at the root... don't treat the symptoms. I know someone that has a TUMS tablet with his meals every single day... what does he eat you wonder? 100% restaurant food. Every meal is cooked outside his house.

While I just passed that judgement, it's really hard to not do that if your lifestyle doesn't support healthy cooking and healthy eating. But, guys, you make your lifestyle! Don't give yourself lame excuses. You really can spend 20 minutes cooking something simple... it won't taste as good as hot crunchy onion rings plated in front of you... but you won't have heart burn and you won't gain weight every day either.

Anyway, I'm done with my preaching. There are a few key items that I'm battling: I don't have a microwave in the room, I don't have a kettle or a coffee maker. However there are many grocery stores around the hotel. Another criteria is I'm not going to carry around 350ml bottles of condiments everywhere. So flavouring has to be really simple but good. SO Here's what I'm planning on doing. I have purchased a rice cooker. I'm going to start experimenting cooking MEALS with said rice cooker and see what happens.

Things I plan on experimenting with:
1. Rice with vegetables and shrimp
2. Potatoes and chicken with vegetables (don't know if I'll do a soup or a steamed dish)
3. Maybe pasta with chicken or ground beef
4. Steamed veggies and chicken or meat

One idea: Steam veggies in rice cooker and eat with rotisserie chicken. For warming up leftover chicken, maybe I can throw it in the rice cooker with more veggies.

Hmm... I'll have to try it out.

Condiments:
1. Soy sauce packets from Chinese fast food joints
2. Salt/pepper from fast food joints
3. Packets of pickles I discovered at an Indian take out place.
4. Ketchup? (I can't see myself putting ketchup on anything really)
5. Chilli sauce from Chinese fast food joints

I will post more when I actually cook something.

Here is a site with a couple of links that aren't bad:
http://frugaldoesabodygood.blogspot.com/2006/06/rice-cooker-one-pot-meals.html

I'm seeing a pattern with the dishes.... mostly rice. But why does it have to be only rice? I'm going to experiment with some other items and update.