Natural Foods Grocery Shopping for A RV Cross-Country Trip

It was mid-June, The RV was packed to the gills with keto margarita mix and pre-made masalas. The fifty-four-quart extra freezer we had purchased just for this two-month cross-country road trip was stocked with so much homemade bone broth, frozen Ginger Gluten-Free Muffins and dal with extra tamarind. We were ready for vacation and RV road-tripping across this great country of ours. But I definitely did not have enough Trader Joe’s pre-made salads to make it to Toronto.

Are you and the fam RV road-tripping across America this summer? Have you planned out the next Whole Foods two states away for your healthy eating needs? Being out on the scenic open roads of America with your puppy and your family may be fantastic but who just used the rest of the organic almond butter?

I’ll admit between the puppy’s love of bone broth and my need for bone broth in every single curry I make, I might have packed a ridiculous amount of bone broth. I didn’t know when we would come across a Whole Foods again so the cupboards were packed with almond flour, coconut flour, macadamia nuts and Korean Gochujang sauce. Forget about Whole Foods, the hungry foodie in me expected we wouldn’t drive past a Trader Joe’s for that addictive kale salad until we made it safely to the east coast in late July! This California foodie was prepared to photograph elk in Wyoming and also to rough it and not be able to purchase healthy ingredients for a while. Goodbye, Broccoli Salad from Costco! Only available in California! I’ll see y’all in September!

RV road-tripping for the healthy foodie

What is the hungry and healthy foodie to do when on a midwest road trip with a few stops in Canada eh, and you just used the last drops of the coconut oil? Don’t get your dreads in a tangle Leaf or River, there are places you can buy CBD oil and hemp seeds even in the middle of Montana! All of us healthy foodies do have choices even as you road trip through Utah, Idaho, Montana and beyond. Stop panicking; There is life beyond Whole Foods, trust me.

Local Farm stands

As our 34-foot motorhome made her way across North Dakota and towards Minnesota, man were we running low on seasonal produce! Thank God for local farm stands! Possibly made famous by that old brit Jeremy Clarkson, farm stands are the backbone of American farming. They are a great way to support local farms and the freshest cuts of romaine you will find. That head of romaine you purchased at Kroger was probably picked, packaged and shipped to Dickinson North Dakota a week ago. Wouldn’t you rather purchase a head of butter lettuce just plucked from the field of family-owned Happy Rock Farm?

Looking for fresh orange beets just picked from the soil of North Dakota? Purchase your organic beets from a small-town natural grocer. The chain Natural Grocerers is the place to buy your organic produce as you road trip this great country of ours from Arizona to Nebraska and beyond! Or you can even check out a beet farm like this one, known around Warsaw North Dakota since 1912! You didn’t want to give your whole paycheck to a corporation like Whole Paycheck anyway, right?

We stopped at so many great farm stands in North Dakota, Montana and Pennsylvania on this cross-country road trip. It was great to stock up on goat cheese straight from the tet, freshly made butter and rib eyes that were raised on this farm. And we loved contributing to actual farmers working hard to feed their families. Using our Harvest Host membership, we were even able to camp on a few farms and this was such a fantastic experience! Our stay at Harmoney Acres Dairy in Pennsylvania was so bucolic. We were able to take selfies with baby goats and piglets in between purchasing freshly churned butter straight from the tet.

Montana; We’ve got the meats

Looking to preserve the heart of the heart of the modern west? Or do you just need to stock up the fridge with some sirloin cut? Look no further than Jackson Hole Buffalo Meats, if you happen to be driving through Wyoming. We fell even further head over heels in love with wild game like elk, buffalo and venison this summer. Wyoming is the place to stock up on wild game if that is your thing.

So you are driving through Montana and yes of course you want to buy half a bison. Why wouldn’t you? It’s Montana, dude you can buy half a bison for $1,500 through North Bridger Bison. And honestly, that is not a bad price for half a ton of animal but you might need a bigger ice chest. They also sell skulls and hides and also sweatshirts, which I could totally afford, unlike purchasing most of a bison.

Craving good quality fresh fish while away from home? Try fishing for whatever is in season wherever you are! We were blessed to go salmon fishing while in Toronto Canada. The wild-caught salmon we caught was just amazing! It tasted so much better than store-bought salmon and was also a fun family adventure. We hoped to fish for Walleye while in Minnesota but just ran out of time. Anywhere you end up, don’t forget to pack your fishing gear or hire a guide and support a small business!

As a food blogger, it’s hard for me to go a few weeks without the essentials. All you foodies

out there know what I mean. A big kitchen with a full range stove, an air fryer and at least two woks. But traveling in a 34- foot motorhome my boyfriend and I make due. So how do you prep your healthy motorhome kitchen for being out on the open road for weeks or months at a time?

• Prep and freeze your bone broth ahead of your big trip.
• Bigger is better. Electric ice chests I mean! It’s totally worth it to invest in a               quart ice chest. I literally brought 6 frozen 2-liter tubs of lamb broth in the plug-in ice chest. Plus 10 frozen bags of premade ice from home. When you are on the back roads of North America for eight weeks it helps!
• Stock your spices ahead of time. Just try to find ground cardamon for your coffee at the Walmart grocery in Duluth, Minnesota.
• Seriously though once you leave California, expect to buy most of your groceries at Walmart. Yes, Walmart groceries are cheap. No, they do not carry tamarind paste.
• When it comes to buying alcohol out of your home state, be prepared! Alcohol laws across the county vary by state. Seventeen different states have state-run liquor stores. What that means is you can not count on buying cheap booze at Costco. If you like margaritas, be prepared ahead of time!
• Amazon Prime came to our rescue. Times they are a changing and so many campsites these days let you ship that organic coconut oil you bought on Amazon Prime straight to your KOA in the middle of nowhere upstate New York.

This is such a great country of ours with so many scenic places. But not all of those places throughout the heartland have Whole Foods, Sprout’s Nutrition or ethnic markets. If you like authentic homemade tortillas, you might just have to pack your tortilla press in the motorhome, purchase some masa on Amazon and create your own in the middle of North Dakota farmland!