What food is good in the truck?

a buton oven works good in the truck--only problem is i start to get real hungry when i can smell it cooking
i WONT eat in a truck stop--i might grab something from by the register in an emergency--until i get stopped and make a meal
once you get sick a few times from truck stop food---you kinda get a real strong dislike for it

 

I cook all kinds of stuff in my truck. I have a lunch box cooker, small crock pot, and a BBQ cooker. I have a microwave too, but I need to have my inverter installed. I do have a small refrigerator (1.7cu f) that doesn't draw much power and will hold everything I need to two weeks.

I don't have a need for the top buck so I pretty much use it for storage. The refrig. sits up there alone with sterilite storage containers for dry goods like taters. I drink a lot of Life Water and the cases sit up there too.

Between Walmart and Sam's Club I have no need for the expensive TS food.

 

32 years of eating at truck stops. Weight at 5'8" before cancer was 155 size 32 waist jeans. I maybe got sick a few time but not more that 10 times and who's to say it was from the truck stop! I do know I got sick from a tuna sandwich I brought from home!
I doubt seriously that getting sick after eating was the truck stops fault as in most of those cases it's a bunch of people and then it hits the news!
It's not the truck stops fault if they got a bad egg in their daily supply or that they kept something in the freezer or refrigerator so long it went bad. Food doesn't stay in earing establishments so long it goes bad!
Any "bad" food came in that way and we all know that the cooks can't tell the difference unless it's the wrong color or smells bad.
For the last 15 years i would leave the house with $100 in my pocket and that would pretty much last me until I got my next allowance from my wife. I would have to replace money I spent for the company at times but that was usually a once a week thing. Now the last year I drove (2009) I almost did up my allowance to $150 but I started to eat lighter out of the milk crate on freeze dried and pre cooked foods and dropped the extra $50.
Yeah I never needed to take advanced except to replace that scale ticket, or toll not paid by EZ Pass (Ohio!)(did Ohio ever join EZPass?) or other out of pocket expenditures.
Truck stop food is just as safe and good as Zippies restaurant or Lone Star! You just need to read the menu and make better choices instead of just ordering off the fat food side!
OH! I also didn't HAVE to go feed my face 3 times a day as some people do!

 

Strawberry poptarts is a good treat , can eat them cold or warm.

 

When I was OTR I ate almost every meal from the food and gear I brought with me in the truck. If you plan to do this get the biggest 12 volt electric cooler you can find. I had a 40 quart Igloo/Coleman cooler and it was packed full at the start of the week. II bought the power adapter that allowed the cooler to "pre-cool" plugged in at home to a wall jack. I only put cold or pre-cooled items into the cooler. If you put in a warm six pack of soda pop it will be about Tuesday before it's cold. It will also suck the cold out of anything already cold.

I also had a 12 volt oven. It looks like this one at Amazon (RoadPro RPSC-900 12V Oven). Similar/smae ovens are available at many chain truck stops. I like this oven over the Burton lunchbox style oven because it is more flexible. You can't really stuff a TV dinner into a Burton lunchbox like you can with the RoadPro oven. I also bungeed a small wooden cutting board to the bottom of the 12v oven to protect the truck floor or dash from the oven's heat. It gets warm and the cooking time is 30-90 minutes, so don't wait to cook until you are starving. The 12 volt oven takes up a lot less room in the truck than a microwave. It also plugs into the cig lighter rather than needing an inverter.

I carried milk, OJ, canned drinks (Coke, iced tea) to drink. I carried breakfast cereal and the instant oatmeal in individual pouches. I carried an assortment of soups and stews, the ones that don't need added water. I carried hot pocket sandwhiches and TV dinners like lasagna. I also carried chips and crackers. I carried cold cuts and condiments.

Daily I would eat cold cereal or oatmeal for breakfast. For lunch I would usually eat a sandwhich and chips. I would usually cook for dinner. That meant heating up a TV dinner, or a soup/stew and possibly a sandwich.

At the end of the week if my bread was getting stale or my TV dinners were gone I may buy a fast food meal at the truck stop. In several years OTR I bought maybe 4 restaurant meals at a truck stop and got sick twice. I never got sick on the food I brought.

One warning on the cooler, buy an extra power cord. Always have a spare power cord and/or fuses. The cooler is a high power draw device and once or twice a year my power cord would fail or I would blow a truck or cooler fuse. I also got one of those indoor/outdoor digital thermometers that have the long cord temp sensor for outside temp measurement. I mounted the display on the side of the cooler where I could see it easily from the driver seat. The temp probe went inside the cooler and kept watch on my groceries. If the power cord/fuse fails and you catch it in time you can save your groceries. If you don't catch it in time make sure to throw away anything that could spoil. You do not want food poisoning on the road.

When I was OTR I could typically spend 1/3 of what the restaurant eaters would spend per week. I also could combine the waiting time at customers with chow time, rather than having to make an additional stop at a truck stop before or after the customer. Typically I would start heating food on the way to a customer or parking spot so it would be ready when I stopped. I put a timer on the truck dash to remind me when my food was ready. TV dinners could take 45-90 minutes to cook.

I realize many truck drivers would choose to stare to death rather than ever eat a meal not served by a waitress, but I figured the more of my daily existence I could control while OTR the better I could stay OTR. YMMV.

 

I love trail mix and dried fruit, great snacks to keep ya moving along...

 

A double meat cheeseburger and extra fries at the stop is the way to go imo....Im just redneckin ya supreme.....thats how it worked out for me when I drove LOL...all before ice boxes and microwaves....

Nowaday I would hit the stops with a good buffet salad bar and stay away from the fried stuff if wanting to eat healthy....Or just carry some Bread and ham and some onion and tomatos and mustard in a cooler....easy more said than done for me tho LOL...good luck...

 

Ok, small 12v cooler w/thermostat and 12v lunchbox cooker.

My food selections were a lot of soups, leftovers from home, meat and cheese sandwiches. For snacks, I carried hard granola bars since they go well with coffee, water or a diet soda. Since I did a lot of Costco store deliveries, I'd call ahead on night deliveries and have the food court hold me a salad or two. Also Costco sold canned chicken that made great sandwiches. Like all of us, I'd breakdown and grab that nasty hot dog occasionally. Along my normal run was a stop that had some of the best fried cod at the deli which I would give in to at least once a week. Once every two weeks or so, I'd go binge on a lumberjack style breakfast.

Sounds fattening? I was losing weight on this diet..... I started trucking at 240lbs, and came off the truck at 190 (2 years). Those Costco salads were great. I gained back the weight when I went local.

 

I seem to live on Healthy Choices Fresh Mixers and cup of noodles.
(that doesn't count cheetos or cookies I snack on)
I also have fresh apples and bannanas, v8, juices, oatmeal and cereal.
With a micro and refer, I find I can have about all I want.
But I do treat myself a couple times a week to a salad at the restaurant. When I first go shopping to stock up, Ill buy a bag of salad mixings. But that goes fast.

 

Small tip if you are hauling a reefer then you can always use a little box in there to keep things cold. A crockpot can run on a simple inverter and can heat up anything really easily. Use crock pot liners or small oven bags to just take out and trow away.
Premade salad kits from the store are great with the dressing and everything in the bag. Hidden Valley makes a pouch with all the stuff for a great salad also. I sometimes just make it right in the bag, shake it and eat it.