We won’t lie, it’s not exactly easy to be additive-free, when you embark on a family camping trip, but it’s still very achievable. Pre-additive free, it would be a running joke that Jo’s family would always come home early from their camping trip, as her daughter would always get sick. All of the little ice cream treats, dips, chips, wines, two-minute noodles and biscuits all add up, in terms of nasty additives! With Easter coming up, we want to prepare you for your own additive-free camping trip! It’s time to get savvy, so you and your family can return from camping, feeling relaxed and rejuvenated.

Jo simply could not figure it out. Looking back on past camping trips, she realises all of those times her daughter’s asthma flared up, or she got bronchitis or another tonsillitis, or even Jo’s own persistent bloating and simply feeling like crap, was all due to the sheer amount of junk food they consumed, whenever they went away camping.

If you’re camping with another family who is not additive-free, kindly just ask for their respect in your choices with food. Educating your own kids about what’s in their food, is an incredibly empowering experience.

If your friends decide to bring additive-filled snacks for their family, your kids will likely already understand why you won’t allow them on your camp trip, and how terrible they make them feel after they eat them. It’s no different than if your child had a dairy-allergy, you wouldn’t then let them have a milkshake! This is a great mindset to adapt to in your additive-free journey.

How to be super prepared and organised

It’s time to get a food plan in place before you even hit the road! It’s simply not going to work by planning your camping meals on the fly. Trust us, we know all too well from our own experience. Don’t make it hard for yourself!

If you’re on a powered site camping, you will no doubt have supermarkets within a reasonable driving distance, and you’re able to make use of a refrigerator or powered esky.

Let’s say you’re heading away for 10 days. You want to meal plan for that time and work out exactly what you’ll be eating. It can be so easy to fall for the old sausage in bread for dinner trick, but you owe it to yourself to eat really awesome meals away from home. You certainly don’t have to go without, nor live on takeaways the whole time. Feel free to get creative:

  • Pre-marinate meats at home, then divide meats into separate snap lock bags and freeze.
  • For an easy butter chicken, add all of your spices to the diced chicken, dice some onion, freeze into a snap lock bag, bring a can of coconut milk and a can of tomatoes. All you need to do is throw it all into a pot at the campsite and dinner is done.
  • Buying seasoned lamb chops from the butcher en route to the campsite isn’t the best idea. Often the seasoning is chocked full of preservatives. Again buy lamb chops beforehand, season yourself (garlic and rosemary are great combination!) before throwing into a ziplock bag.
  • Pre-cook some meals before you go, cook up a big lasagne or spag bol that will last a couple of nights.
  • Don’t forget to take your sweet treats too! Freeze up a batch of bliss balls, homemade cakes, slices and dips etc.

Take the pressure off

For most kids, they know to expect slightly different meals than what they would have at home. There’s no need to add extra pressure on yourself to create a perfect home-cooked meal with limited resources on site. That’s all part of the fun of camping, living in a more rustic way than you otherwise would.

Aim to be additive-free on your camp trip for at least half of the time that you’re there. Again there’s no need to strive for perfection! It’s still much better than throwing away the whole trip as a right off, in terms of the amount of junk food you consume! But remember, you can still have your junk food and eat it too:

  • Look for plainer options, such as original flavoured chips, lightly salted. Take it back to basics.
  • Go for plain options with your biscuits too!
  • With dips, there’s a few on the market that are preservative-free such as Jamie Olivier brands. Some specialised delis will sell nothing but preservative-free, so make sure you look outside the box of regular chain supermarkets! Or even make your own!
  • Marshmallows toasted over the fire-pit are always a family favourite on a camping trip. Just go for the plain white ones instead, there’s no need to choose all the different colours and flavours available these days!
  • Peters brand ice cream sells an additive-free vanilla ice cream. Yum!

Healthier breakfast options

You can still get away with bacon on the side of your breakfast meal, just choose nitrate free. If you’re more of a pancake fan, avoid taking the shaker bottles and make some mixture yourself. We have a great tasting chocolate Protein pancake recipe! Or even some pikelets. Again grab a zip lock bag to store batches. Don’t forget, you can easily freeze the pancake mixture too, eggs, milk and all.

Great recipes from Sistermixin for camping

Remember, it’s all about striving for the best in terms of additive-free options. But you are allowed treats from time to time. It’s totally OK to have fish and chips for dinner one night or let the kids get a chocolate ice cream from the camp store. Happy camping!

Resources

[/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]