Don’t panic, it’s organic.
February 1st, 2008 by Tiffany Miller
Eating cheaply while travelling is a challenge. Eating healthy while travelling is another. Put the two together and you’ve got a seemingly big roadblock in the way of enjoying your holiday. I, for one, can only eat so many McChickens before burning a hole in my stomach, and only shop for organic produce so much before burning a hole in my wallet. I have noticed that many travellers (mostly girls; guys can sometimes seem like beerandpizzavores) are facing the same problem. So I did a little investigation.
I went to the local organic market in Noosa today to find one of my favorite snacks: whole grain pita bread, hummous, and sliced cucumbers (hey its a good source of protein). The grand total: $13.50, and they didn’t even have pita bread; I would have had to settle on white crisps. I then passed by an organic cafe offering some concoction involving pesto and pumpkin slices: $16. Finally, I stumbled upon an Aldi, one of the best things to come out of Germany since Haribo. To my delight, they had all-natural hummous, whole grain pita bread (yay!) and fresh cucumber. And I even picked up a jar of organic yoghurt with muesli. All together it cost me $8.60. Breakfast included.
So while it can sometimes be nice to treat yourself to an oceanfront lunch in a healthy cafe, or gorge on a cheap slice of Domino’s at the hostel, remember that you can have the best of both worlds. It just takes some effort, creativity, and a little help from our friends at Aldi. Sometimes you can find tasty, cheap, and healthy munchies at farmers markets too- a great way to combine your mission with sightseeing and mingling with the locals. Woolworths and Coles supermarkets also have growing organic and natural food aisles, though Aldi’s prices beat ‘em hands down. Just don’t do the organic market thing unless you have to. You end up spending half your budget on breakfast (not to mention enduring the doubtful eyes of the raw foodist yoga dude at the checkout counter- yea, we know tofu ice cream is still ice cream), and you’ll have no money left over for beer.
Leave a Reply