Survival food sounds a little melodramatic. Gap foods, bridge foods, I didn’t know what to call them. The foods that you can find most anywhere, which are satisfying and travel well, and which can bridge the gap and let you keep going in situations where vegan food is not easy to come by right at that moment. They get you through.
Airports or on airplanes are good examples of situations where we might need to make use of this strategy. Or in early morning hours, driving to fairly remote places, where the only place open is Starbucks.
Almonds are it for me. The perfect survival/gap/bridge food. I thought about this on Sunday, when I stopped at Starbucks in the early hours on my way to the sanctuary for the Open House event. I was desperate for some caffeine, and Starbucks was the only place open. Even the grocery stores hadn’t woken up yet.
Starbucks carry Almonds. I was starving. I knew that in a few hours bagels would arrive at the sanctuary, and that I’d be able to have lunch a few hours after that, but I also knew that my empty stomach was painful in its demand for food. I needed something, and I needed it right then.
One of the beautiful things about almonds is that it only takes a few, and the ravenous beast that lives inside me is quieted in moments.
I love almonds.
And today I found out that almonds are not a nut, but the seed of a fruit.
This pretty much proves the point that you learn something new every day. Who would have thought? I would have put good money on my belief that almonds are nuts! I wonder if this means that fruititarians eat almonds?
Almonds are my favorite ’survival food’ too! Nothing beats them. I’ve also been known to stuff my purse with bananas, tangerines, chocolate and dried fruit…but almonds are still thew winners. The seed of a fruit, huh? Interesting!
According to Wikipedia, almonds are nuts.
@tvv – wow, that must be a big purse! lol. Sometimes I think about getting one of those banana carriers, so I could carry bananas without them getting bruised.
@Ciuma – I did provide a link for my information on almonds not being nuts, but if Wikipedia is the only source you trust, then here you go. According to Wikipedia, almonds are not nuts.
Ha, I knew they were “drupes” but somehow, dim-wittingly, hadn’t realized that meant they weren’t nuts!
I tend to think “peanuts-and-raisins” and “clif-bars” when I’m worried about traveling too far from known vegan food sources. It’s so nice that clif bars have found their way into almost every Wal-Mart in the country. Perhaps the only thing good about never being very far from a Wal-Mart!!
Yeah, I definitely travel with clif bars, but I tend to use those as meal replacers or when I need something fairly substantial to get me through. I try to keep them for bigger needs. As an aside, I was hiking in Argentina, and in some little hut like place in the back of nowhere, there were other hiking groups passing through. One guy had been pretty sick, and was feeling very weak. I had a Clif bar with me, and gave it to him. I thought he was going to offer his first born child in his thanks. Clif bars were like gold down there, and in the middle of nowhere hiking many hours away from anything at all it isn’t something you’d even dream of. Lots of north americans travel with them, but to give one away? Madness!
They are pretty easy to find, but I like nuts and almonds
and dried fruit as survival food because those are also things that you can find in any country. Can’t read labels? Stick to the whole foods. And also, if you find yourself at Starbucks having stupidly not prepared well for being ravenously hungry at 6:30am with no other options around, almonds to the rescue! lol.
But all this talk about dried fruit has me craving dried mango!
I did not know that about almonds-as-not-nuts–thanks for sharing. And I love that site you used as a reference. They have a food-of-the-week feature that is always informative. I get it on my Google homepage. This week, I believe, is one of my new favorite foods, kale. Yum!
@mburgan – glad I’m not the only one who didn’t know that almonds aren’t nuts! And that’s good to know about the site I linked in. It came up when I googled for info on Almonds, I hadn’t realized that it has a food of the week feature! I like that. I’ll have to sign up for it! Thanks for mentioning that feature, I find it helps to learn about foods that way, or to learn more about the ones I already eat!
Ha, yeah I didn’t know that almonds are not nuts either. They are delicious either way and one of my favorite survival foods as well. I agree with the author that they certainly take the edge off of hunger.