Why every vegan should travel with a portable blender
What our experience taught us:
We’ve all been there. You book a decent hotel. You write a comment in the special request section mentioning that you are vegan, hoping they will accommodate your needs. Only to arrive for early morning breakfast and find the regular eggs and toast with butter, jam and if you are lucky, some small pieces of fresh fruit.
As nomadic vegans, we have spent the last two years traveling around the world and compiling info to make our vegan travel website The Veganary.
It is our belief that vegan food can be found in nearly every country, but it might prove to be a hard task sometimes, especially when you are outside of major cities and tourist destinations. Due to the lack of options available to us, we often found ourselves eating unhealthy and unsatisfying foods like plain carbs or snacks and sweets (see our Animated Video).
What changed
Two years ago, before setting off to yet another destination, we noticed that we had some extra room left in our bags and decided to bring along our vegan saviour, the travel blender. Looking back, this decision impacted our travels more the we could have ever imagined!
It was worth mentioning that only later on did we find out the importance of carrying with us a good travel knife. This is essential if you want to have something versatile to easily cut through all your fruits and veggies, while at the same light and easy to carry. If you only travel occasionally then you can probably get by with choosing a light kitchen knife.
Haleluya!!
With the combo of the travel blender and knife our travels became a vegan paradise! It allowed us to easily make our own smoothie bowls, savory dips and spreads, fresh fruits and salads, and even cookies at times where our accommodation included an oven. We were blown away by how much our small blender changed the travelling experience for us!
As long as you stay open minded and use fresh local produce, we are sure you will find many other creative ways of incorporating it in to your diet.
We recommend the travel blender and knife to all vegans, but especially for those traveling on a lower budget. This is because you can stop depending on restaurants and start buying your food products in the local markets, potentially cutting your eating costs by half of even more. While enjoying some of the healthiest, tastiest, cheapest food your destination has to offer.
Here are some ideas of how you can use your blender while traveling:
Savory or sweet spreads/dips/sauces:
They are soooo tasty and are real life savers! Ingredients such as nuts, dried fruit, herbs and spices are relatively easy to find in most countries. The sauces are extremely helpful when your only vegan option is a plain carb such as bread, rice or potatoes. By making the right spread / sauce combining it with a few commonly found fresh vegetables, you can turn what would otherwise be a dull meal into a true delicacy.
Smoothies:
Might be the most obvious option, but also one of the most useful. A good smoothie can be a full nutritious breakfast if made with fruits, oats, nuts and seeds. Or instead opt for a hearty smoothie bowl. Fresh fruits, vegetables and greens, can be used according to the country and season. Making also a perfect small snack in the middle of the day to sweeten things up.
Energy Bars / Cookies:
They are real life savers when you are unsure of the amount of the available vegan options in your upcoming day. So many delicious raw vegan recipes for snacks, energy bars and cookies. The ingredients to make them can easily be found in most countries, since they are mostly made out of flour, nuts, seeds and dried fruit or dark chocolate. These proved to be absolutely vital for all those unexpected times; you cannot locate any vegan food options nearby.
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Our Recommended Travel Blenders:
Since you are traveling, you don’t really need or want to take with you a high-end blender. You are much better getting something reasonably priced, So you should not have to worry about if it gets broken or stolen. Ours survived for 3 years, first at home and then through intensive traveling ! Here are our choices for the best reasonably priced travel blender under 40 USD.
PopBabies
The PopBabies is a Unique Detachable Travel Blender. Cup size is 500ml (17oz). The design is sleek and elegant. Built in USD rechargeable battery of 4000mAh, with the possibility simultaneously blend and charge. The PopBabies is a bit stronger than the Vitamer with 170W and 22,000 rpm. At the same time it is also slightly heavier at 590g (1.3 pounds).
Vitamer
The vitamer blender is a small, lightweight and compact. The size of the cup is 500ml (17oz) making it one of the smaller travel blenders. Built-in you will find a USB port to recharge of your battery of 4000mAh, with 150W and a max speed of 20,000 rpm. Not recommended to blend whilst charging. Total Wight of 550g (1.2 pounds).
Kacsoo
This blender is similar to the others, small compact and handy. It’s main feature is the powerful battery of 5200mAh. Making it last more blends, but has less blending power at 126W and 16500 rpm. This blender will be useful for people who travel to far places where constant electricity might be a problem.
Top Vegan Travel Blender:
Our top recommendation for a vegan travel blender is Pop Babies! This is because we have great experience with their blenders. They are the most powerful in this category, and products includes a silicone ice tray and funnel. Which have proven to be extremely useful instruments for us when traveling.
Travel Knife
We found that a good travel knife comes in handy when traveling. If you do bring your own from home, take a kitchen knife, do not count on your swiss army one. In our mind though, investing 9 USD on a proper travel knife is a wise choice that will serve you well.
This is the knife we have been using for a few years already and still in perfect shape:
Our top recommendation is a 5.5-Inch Utility Knife by ZYLISS is made of stainless steel and is perfect for slicing, peeling and cutting your fruits veggies. The knife is sharp, easy to sharpen and very comfortable in general. When finished, just slide the blade cover and you are good to go.
For those who are looking for a larger or smaller knifes we can recommend these knifes that are also by ZYLISS.
