What I Actually Eat on Holiday (Simple Wins)

Every time I travel, I get the same question. Ami, how do you eat this way on holiday? And the honest answer is: simply. Really simply. I am not doing fancy recipes on holiday. I am doing whole food, plant-based, low calorie density eating on the go, and it is a lot less complicated than you think.

Here is what a trip to Spain with two kids and a weak travel blender actually looked like.

Travel day: fruit, fruit, and more fruit

The day before we flew I made a massive pot of green soup at my brother's house. Loads of greens, a couple of potatoes for thickness, blended. I had a big bowl of it for breakfast, and I will admit I ate slightly past full on purpose, because I did not know when I would next get a proper vegetable. That is calculated. I do it deliberately when I travel, and then I go back to normal.

The airport was bananas, apples, rice cakes and tomatoes. My daughter and I got through about ten bananas and five apples that day. Fruit is the easiest travel food there is. No fridge, no prep, nobody stops you at security.

We landed late, everything was shut except a pizza place, and my mum had brought apples. So we shared an apple and a half each and went to bed excited about it. That is not deprivation. That is just what tired hungry people do when there is fruit about.

The emergency stash

Wherever I stay, I make sure there is a small emergency starch stash. Pasta, a tin of tomato sauce, a tin of chickpeas. That is a dinner for the whole family on any evening when the fresh food has run out, and it costs about three euros.

Porridge in a wine glass

No measuring cups in the apartment, so I measured the oats in a wine glass. Very fancy. Porridge is my holiday breakfast every single day because it keeps everyone full for ages and it is impossible to get wrong, even when the oats go everywhere because you poured them from a wine glass.

Chopped banana, a splash of soya milk, the tiniest sprinkle of sugar for the kids. Boring, simple, so good.

Big bowls, local fruit, no rules

Dinners were volume bowls. A big base of lettuce and tomato, about two cups of chickpeas, steamed broccoli, mushrooms, spinach, tomato sauce over the top, pasta if I was hungry enough. And the fruit there was the ripest and the cheapest I have ever had. When you get that combination, you eat the fruit. Figs, cherries, watermelon, papaya. I was embracing the delicious freshness of life.

There are no food rules. You can have soup for breakfast if that helps you. You can have porridge. Nobody is checking.

We did crack a coconut against a wall in the street with the help of a passing English bloke, so it was not entirely without incident.

Do not obsess about the gym

I could have obsessed about finding a gym and going every day. That is not the kind of holiday it was. I was averaging twenty thousand steps chasing two small children around, doing squats and push-ups on the beach for a laugh, and that was plenty. Food does the heavy lifting anyway. A holiday is for enjoying, and I came home feeling exactly the same as when I left.

Simple is how I would eat anyway

Here is the thing I realised on that trip. Fruit, porridge, potatoes, beans, big salads. That is basically how I eat the majority of the time when I am not filming a recipe. It is not a holiday compromise. It is the actual foundation, and it travels anywhere.

Watch: The bananas, the wine glass, the coconut, and me deleting my outro by accident are all in What I ate on holiday, simple vegan meals.

Keep it simple, lovely. Fruit in your bag, oats in the cupboard, and a tin of chickpeas for emergencies. That is the whole holiday plan.

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