Vegan pregnancy - travelling

[BeNavyLion]

Hi all,

I have just found out I'm pregnant and I travel a lot for work, meaning a lot of hotel stays and ordering takeout when in a hotel. Just wondering if anyone else who is in the same boat has done (I know this is a very niche boat, so welcome any advice). For example, any particular restaurants that you would suggest for eating nutritious vegan meals. I know wagamama do a lot of healthy foods but nervous about enoki mushrooms (not fully sure of the layout there). Also looking for healthy breakfast and lunch ideas (keep in mind I will have no kitchen).

FYI - I am not looking for responses that suggests eating meat. Pregnancy can be done safely when Vegan if planned correctly according to the NHS, and travelling is also safe.

I'm dairy free rather than vegan but was living in hotels for several months during my pregnancy, here's some vegan ideas:

Toast with fruit jam (I just didn't use the butter provided) at the hotel breakfast.

Buy some alpro plain yoghurt and add chopped strawberries or blueberries (you can take a cutlery knife with you for chopping them up).

I was doing this during the summer so I did buy an electric coolbox and a wall adaptor so I could use it in hotel rooms to keep my Alpro Growing Up milk in for cups of tea, smoothies etc. I use Growing Up milk because it has more of all the nutrients in it than other milks I've tried.

I stopped by supermarkets on my way to/from hotels to pick up the strawberries, yoghurts, growing up milk etc.

For lunches, you can buy pre-packed salads from the supermarket and a bag of seeds or peanuts (for protein) and make it a crunchy salad.

I tended to eat all sorts for dinner, just whatever I could find as I was in rural Ireland and there wasn't much choice, so I won't suggest dinners as it really depends on what's available but I tried to have one big hot main meal each day to keep my energy up.

Hiya, another pregnant vegan here. I don't have experience with the travelling element, but one thing I've had to do quite a lot in pregnancy is making sure I make up for any substandard meals by having a lot of nutrient dense snacks. I've had a lot of nuts, dried fruit, flapjacks etc when nutritious meals weren't easy to come by x

Ooh I've just remembered another thing I did at one point was packed a bowl and spoon and bought a box of breakfast cereal (granola in my case) and used the soya milk with that. There's nothing quite as refreshing in the morning as a bowl of cereal with cold soya milk.
I'm assuming you're driving to these hotels, BTW; it's going to be a bit less practical to get a cool box or lug food around with you etc if not.

Hi I’m not pregnant but am vegan and have had to be in hotels a lot for work previously. I used to take sourdough or wholemeal bread, and have peanut butter and banana on it. If you can take a cool box take yoghurt, fruit and granola. You could also make scrambled tofu breakfast wraps and take them out the cool box an hour before eating so they’re room temp not cold!

Are you new to veganism? You don’t seem to know what you should be eating, regardless of pregnancy. Meant kindly, you and your baby might benefit from being vegetarian during your pregnancy. Would be much easier to manage. And more nutrient rich than vegan. Are you thinking of your baby or you in this? I’m not anti vegan. I’m pro healthy mum and baby and it will be more challenging and possibly stressful travelling whilst having to constantly ‘worry’ about your food intake. Good luck with your pregnancy OP.

Pack chia seeds and sprinkle them on everything. Snack on nuts and dried fruits. Most hotels should cater these days. Try calling in advance to make them aware that you need special milk/yoghurt/butter etc.

Have you got good prenatals? I take wild nutrition as the general multivitamin then a separate choline and a separate vegan omega 3 (from algae).

Also in terms of takeaways, anything with falafel, tofu, or beans. When I travel I usually look for Mexican places because I can get burritos with beans, vegetables, guacamole etc. It feels like a pretty well rounded meal to me!

"meant kindly" seems to be the "I'm just being honest". Where you say something either rude or stupid and expect that it will be accepted because you prefaced it with a silly phrase.

What do you normally eat when you're travelling? You don't need to eat any differently now you're pregnant. Why are you worried about enoki mushrooms at Wagamama?!

Unless advice has changed since my last, I think bagged salads as a regular meal item should be avoided when possible.

I think the best thing you can do is make sure you're eating one healthy meal a day that you know you won't have to worry about.

So, a good quality bread (Jason's is easy to get and has no nasties in it). A bowl of fruit for the hotel room, full of avocados and a plant milk that isn't full of upf for a good quality cereal. There are a few different ones of you Google.

And keep a travel bowl and cutlery set with you

Oh and Ziploc baggy full of nuts.

Apparently they can carry a risk of listeria if not cooked properly.

I'd probably look to a vegan forum, rather than MN tbh. It's generally not that aware at best and outright hostile at worst about veganism for some reason.

There are plenty of vegans here that want to be helpful!

I would recommend reading "Real Food for Pregnancy" by Lily Nichols. Very well reached and backed up by hundreds of academic studies.

Just a heads up, she is in favour of eating animal products during pregnancy, but she also goes into detail on the supplements and other food choices you can make to ensure your baby is getting everything they need.

So for example, you might consider taking a choline supplement (since mostly found in eggs) or ensure you get enough vitamin K by eating natto (a fermented soy bean product).

Sorry, didn't mean to quote the OP!

But she doesn't have to eat them? It's a weird reason to avoid a whole restaurant

Thanks to those who have given genuine advice :) love the idea of snacks between meals, should be able to pick those up from a small store quite easily.

Experienced vegan with zero nutritional issues, but my first pregnancy and very early so still at the start of my journey; naturally want to do all I can to mitigate any risks. It's really my fault because I mentioned I don't want any meat eating comments but didn't mention everything. Vegetarian is out the picture too.

Afraid I travel by train so a coolbox is a no :( I mostly travel to cities so a lot of restaurants are close by, but interestingly there are usually not many big supermarkets within walking distance to my hotels (there are however smaller ones like a little co-op or Tesco etc). I often order Wagamamas at the moment for dinner, but my fear around that is cross contamination, for example how dangerous is it? I'm not even sure if they have enoki mushrooms if I'm honest but when I've googled them they seem like mushrooms that are often in stir-fry type dishes so was thinking they might do?

@BellaRosex I take a general prenatal 🙂