Gluten Free Engineer - Making Gluten Free Easy

Gluten-Free at the Beach: How We Prep for a Safe & Fun Vacation

• Carrie Saunders • Episode 27

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Today, I’m sharing one of our favorite family traditions — beach vacations! But if you’re living that gluten-free life like we are, you know vacations come with a whole new layer of planning.

It’s not just about sunscreen and flip-flops — it’s about staying safe, making sure we don’t get glutened, and still getting to relax and enjoy the trip. From what we pack in the car to what kitchen items we bring along to the condo, I’m walking you through exactly how we prepare to make sure our vacation is fun and stress-free.

Whether you're heading to the beach, the mountains, or just going away for the weekend — this episode is packed with tips to help you eat well, feel great, and avoid any mid-trip gluten surprises.


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Carrie Saunders:

Quick reminder before we get started on this episode this podcast is based on my personal experiences and isn't medical advice. Today I'm sharing one of our favorite family traditions and that's beach vacations. But if you're living that gluten-free lifestyle, like we are, you know vacations can come with a whole new layer of planning. It's not just about sunscreen, flip-flops, packing the perfect bathing suit. It's about staying safe and making sure we don't get glutened and still getting to relax and enjoy the trip and enjoy some food adventures. From what we pack in the cart to what kitchen items we bring along to the condo, I'm going to walk you through exactly how we prepare to make sure our vacation is fun and stress-free. So, whether you're heading to the beach, the mountains or just going away for the weekend, this episode is going to be packed with tips to help you eat well, feel great and avoid any mid-trip gluten surprises. So let's get into it. Welcome to the Gluten-Free Engineer Podcast. I'm your host, Saunders.

Carrie Saunders:

In 2011, I was diagnosed with celiac disease, a moment that changed everything, but I was determined not to let it hold me back. With my two engineering degrees, I set out to reverse engineer the gluten-free lifestyle, breaking down recipes, safety tips, travel hacks and everything in between to rebuild a life I love. Whether you have celiac disease, gluten intolerance or simply choose to live gluten-free, this podcast is for you. Join me each week as we simplify the gluten-free lifestyle, make it fun and prove that you don't have to miss out on anything. Welcome back to the show.

Carrie Saunders:

Today we're talking about being gluten-free on vacation, particularly what we like to do for our gluten-free Myrtle Beach vacation that we do every year. We love to go to Myrtle Beach every year in the summer with our kids. My husband and I have been doing this since when we were dating, back in high school, I would go with his family on a beach vacation and he had been doing it since he was a little kid and his dad since he was a little kid. So their family tradition is to go to Myrtle Beach pretty much every single year. So whenever we found out that I had celiac disease and then later you know, not too long after that, about a year or so after that found out our oldest had celiac, followed by a few more years later and the other two having celiac our beach vacations changed a lot. We needed to make sure that we were having fun, enjoying our time there, but also being safe. We didn't want to get accidentally gluten.

Carrie Saunders:

Obviously, when you're on vacation, because you want to have fun and feel good on vacation and you want to be able to enjoy it. And we're going to be talking about how do we plan ahead so that we can relax and enjoy our vacation, and we've applied this to our even longer trips to Orlando, florida, to Universal Studios or Disney. That's probably. That's about a 12 to 15 hour drive from where we live, depending upon what time of day you actually drive down there, versus our beach vacation. That's about an eight hour drive. It used to be 11 hours, but they have a lot better roads now. So how do we do this?

Carrie Saunders:

First off, we plan ahead and then, to make this simple, what I encourage you to do is make a list of what you need and what you're going to take with you and keep that list so that every time you go on vacation, you can look at your you know trusted items that you always want to bring, that you always need to bring, and just adjust it for wherever you might be going, in case it's a different location. But we started when the kids were little, even before we had celiac and knew that we well, we probably had celiac. But before we knew we had celiac, we had that trusty list of what to pack. So we didn't forget their essential toys sunscreen, you know, toothbrush, toothpaste, all those things. But then, as we found out that we were celiac, we started adding on essential items like food and kitchen items that we're going to bring with us. So having that list helps reduce the stress of going on subsequent vacations so that you are making sure you aren't forgetting something. So we want to make that list so it's not overwhelming. It just helps you prepare a bit more.

Carrie Saunders:

So one of the things that I love to do is I love to, when we're going on a road trip, shop at home. I do this for a couple of reasons. One, I don't want to waste my time on vacation shopping. It just seems silly. I want to enjoy my vacation. Two, usually on those vacation touristy places the groceries are more expensive than at my house, so I'm saving a bit of money. And three, I don't know whether my you know tried and true gluten-free items are going to be available in those stores. So it kind of helps reduce the stress by, you know, preparing and bringing those food items along with us so that we don't have to waste our time and potentially money and maybe not be able to find what we need. So we always grocery shop before we go.

Carrie Saunders:

We have collected over the years, you know, several different coolers and we even know that they'll make it all the way to Florida a full day trip, 12 to 15 hour drive trip. So once you get experience doing this, you can do it, you know, even easier next time. So pack that cooler, bring the things that you like. For us we have specific eggs that we love here locally, that we get from a farmer that doesn't feed their chickens soy or wheat, so we tolerate them a lot better. So we even bring eggs with us and they're more sturdy than you think. We will bring our favorite grass-fed butter too. Again, that way I don't have to, you know, shop and try to find it at a store, and so a tip on the butter is if you're traveling, you know, say more than four or five hours or so, or even if it's a short trip, freeze it. Freeze it before you go. Butter is really great to freeze and refreeze. It really just tolerates that. So freeze something like that.

Carrie Saunders:

You can also make sure that you're bringing your favorite gluten-free granola bars. We like to pack in our coolers our lunches, so we don't even have to stop for lunch. We just stop for bathroom breaks and gas and that's it. So we don't even stop and go out to eat on the way. We will pack lunch meats and gluten-free bread and usually some fruit. We'll pack beef jerky that's gluten and soy-free. We might pack some gluten-free, safe nuts for protein. So we like to pack a decent amount of protein for the trip down. It's going to keep you fuller longer and you're going to feel more satisfied, and so we like to, you know, lean towards that more protein snack. We do have, you know, the gluten-free bread and the granola bars to help us out too. And we do need a bit of carbs because you know, our bodies do function on carbs as well. So make sure you're packing a good variety that you know works for your body. My body personally needs more protein than most of the rest of our family, so I know I need to have those heavy protein snacks with me.

Carrie Saunders:

We also will pack if we're going to a condominium and we're actually Marriott Vacation Club owners, we will, you know. So we travel to condominiums a lot because it's, you know, just built into our package and it's a lot cheaper for us that way. And we will take certain essential pans you know our favorite egg frying pan, our favorite cutting board and knife, so the things that you would worry about in a condominium having cross contamination potentiality in the vessels. So we'll bring things like that. We even have a special toaster, just a cheap toaster that we take with us so that we can toast our bread safely and so that we aren't using the toaster that's in the condo. Sometimes we bring our air fryer. We're a little bit crazy. We sometimes bring our air fryer because our kids love gluten-free chicken strips and it's just an easy way to do it. So we will sometimes bring our air fryer too. So we might go a little bit overboard, I will admit that, but it's the things that we like. It's their comfort thing.

Carrie Saunders:

So look at what you use on a daily basis in your own kitchen and see what makes the most sense to take with me, what's going to make it easier for me. You also are going to want to consider bringing like cooking utensils, like spatulas or spoons, just in case the place you're going to has wooden or plastic ones that can hide gluten in it. Now I do know that the Marriott Vacation Club area that we go to, they have, thankfully, stainless steel spoons so we don't have to bring quite so many cooking utensils as far as that goes, because those will. They do tend to clean up very well and don't have the cross contact in there. And we also love to bring, you know, a packet of foil like aluminum foil. So if you get in a pinch aluminum foil is a great way to aluminum foil. So if you get in a pinch aluminum foil is a great way to save you from that cross contact. You can put it on, you know, the cooking vessel you might be using on the stove or on a grill or in the oven or on a sheet pan that they might have. It's a great way to have an extra layer, a barrier for any cross contact. So we like to have a foil with us just in case we need to use it to protect things. Now, if you're going to a place it's not that you're afraid they may not have cleaned it well, make sure you double wipe down everything and make sure there's. You know you're minimizing what gluten might be left behind there.

Carrie Saunders:

And then I like to resource restaurants ahead of time. Now, when we're going to Myrtle Beach we've been there for years, you know we obviously will double check. The restaurant still has a good reputation, so we already have our favorites. But when you're going someplace new, I like to research restaurants ahead of time. We make a list of our top ones we want to go to. We'll use the Find Me Gluten Free app to double check. You know recent reviews on how celiac safe they are and then use that for our adventures. When recently, when I was researching for this next upcoming Myrtle Beach trip, I found this dedicated gluten-free ice cream shop, so we are super excited to try it. They have pineapple ice cream and we all love pineapple, so we're super excited to try that. So doing that, doing that planning ahead, can get you even more excited for your upcoming vacation. So try to view it as not a tour, but as an exciting way to explore new places that will be safe to eat.

Carrie Saunders:

So we also make sure that when we do go to the restaurants that are not dedicated gluten-free, we want to make sure we tell the server that we have a gluten. Allergy is what we usually do or celiac, if they tend to understand that word, but I find gluten allergy tends to resonate more with most servers and many times they will bring a manager over to talk to us and make sure that we are safe. You can make sure you ask for hidden gluten potentials, whether the fryer is shared, whether the cooktop is shared with other gluten areas, whether they have a gluten-free prep area or not, whether they will change their gloves or not. So ask your standard questions when you are going out to eat, especially in mixed restaurants, and many times when we go on these vacations we eat in a bit more than we eat out anymore. And honestly, one, it's more fun sometimes because we're all sitting around the table in our condo and having a good time. And two, we're saving money.

Carrie Saunders:

Now, another thing we do too is my kids absolutely love my gluten-free chicken casserole. I've talked about this before on the podcast. It's one of their favorite things. So what I will do a few days before vacation is I'll make somewhere between one and three of them. Sometimes my youngest convinces me to make him two and the rest of the family one, but honestly, they all share all three. But I will make them ahead of time because when you're making that recipe. Making more than one is not much more effort than just making one, and so we'll make it ahead of time. I'll put it in the freezer in our deep freezer, you know a day or two before we leave, so it gets deep frozen and that treats like an ice pack on the way down. So that helps, one, keep our food cold and two, it preserves it for whenever it is time to have that.

Carrie Saunders:

You know, gluten-free chicken casserole on our vacation, and the kids actually look forward to that meal. That's one of the things they're like oh are we having chicken casserole, mom, on vacation? You know that's something they look forward to. So find a favorite meal like that. That might be maybe something that's a little bit more effort and you don't do it every day at home, but it travels well, like this gluten-free chicken casserole. You can find the recipe on our website, um, at the glutenfreeengineercom, and find some fun ways to also eat in. Um, we will also. We'll eat in dinner, but then maybe we go out for dessert and find a you know a great ice cream shop. So mix it up and find some fun ways to have a great gluten-free beach vacation. We also have small coolers that we take with us. We can take them to the actual beach so that we're not running back into the condo to get lunch or to have snacks. We know we have safe things to eat when we're away from the condo and out on the beach. So think about how do you normally do your vacation? How would you slightly adjust it to make it more convenient and gluten-free and look at it as an opportunity and a fun way to make your vacation much more enjoyable?

Carrie Saunders:

And when you do go on vacation, we always want to make sure we pack stuff for emergencies. So we always bring digestive enzymes and we will take them before and after meal when we're at a restaurant that has a mixed kitchen. Even though we might think that they're very careful, we do that just in case. You might want to bring some tummy soothing teas in case you do get gluten. You might want some pain relievers or anti-nausea medicines in case you get gluten. These are things that I like to pack just in case. Maybe some electrolyte packets if that helps you recover from being gluten, and you might want to have some gluten-free snacks, obviously for recovery, just in case. But when I do the other things I talked about earlier in this episode. Usually we don't need these emergency recovery type things, but I always like to have them just in case, because nobody wants to run out to the store to get these things in an emergency if somebody is feeling sick. So always pack these with you. Then you're always set in case something does come up. So with a little planning, gluten-free beach trips or road trips can be very enjoyable potentially even more fun and lower stress than it was before your diagnosis of celiac or before you found out you were gluten intolerant. And you deserve a vacation where you don't have to stress over every meal and it's absolutely doable. And we have so much fun on our trips and I hope you do as well.

Carrie Saunders:

Thank you for listening to this episode of the gluten-free engineer. If you found value in this story, please share it with someone who might need encouragement on their own gluten-free journey. For more tips, recipes, resources and even links to my YouTube channel, head on over to theglutenfreeengineercom. It's your one-stop hub to make gluten-free living simple, fun and full of flavor. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss out on an episode. And we will see you next week. The Gluten-Free Engineer podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The Gluten-Free Engineer podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. I share my personal experiences and stories about living with celiac disease and navigating a gluten-free lifestyle. This podcast does not provide medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional for medical questions, concerns or advice specific to your health.

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