Vegan To Go

My son is in Air Cadets and they go away every once and a while on weekend Survival Exercise.  They are given pouches of food (MRE - Meal, Ready-to-Eat) that they heat up and consume to replenish all those burned up calories.  The Squadron obtains their supply from a really well run company called Meal Kit Supply Canada (cool website/great videos).  Just out of curiosity I emailed them and asked for an ingredients list.  Because of the way they are packaged they do not need preservatives, but that doesn't automatically make them healthy.  Most of the offerings have a meat base (bad).  Those that are vegetarian are mainly dairy laden (bad).  Lots of the offerings had ingredients you could pronounce (good).  The one thing that contained the fewest and most "natural" ingredients was the Blackberry Jam which had blackberries as the first ingredient and SUGAR as the second (bad).  Other items (mainly the drinks and deserts) had corn syrup as a main ingredient.  The meals do live up to their promise of providing calories, but surely consuming that much sugar would affect the immune system that is already stressed from the act of "survival".

So I was beginning to think I would need to start my own line of products that provided healthy nutrition without meat or dairy, and sugar at the bottom of the list (if at all), but then a friend introduced me to Tasty Bite.  It is similar packaging style to the MREs but the food in Tasty Bite packaging contains is just that, FOOD.  Indian and pan-Asian cuisine that is vegetarian, many containing lentils and beans.  Most are designated Vegetarian, Vegan, Gluten Free, and Kosher.  And, as a bonus, it costs the same or cheaper than the MREs.

The applications for this type of food appear endless.  Living in Victoria, we are always conscious of Earthquakes and having enough food to cover 72 hours.  Tasty Bite has a "Very Vegan" kit that would be perfect.   Living and playing on the West Coast also requires food that is easily transported.  Again, Tasty Bite fits the bill.  Even just having food on hand when you run out of real food and need something to throw into your lunch.  Tasty Bite is it.  Having a healthy alternative to enjoy in times of stress or times of joy can only benefit your well being.

Now I have to work on convincing the Air Cadet Squadron.