Cheap, healthy, easy food on the go

I never eat out except when compelled by a group I'm with and then usually only if someone else is paying. So when I'm traveling or even just going to town, this is generally how I feed myself: with quick oatmeal (plus many goodies) soaked in a plastic jar.

I have accumulated a lot of 24oz plastic peanut butter jars from costco/gross-me-outlet. I put quick oats in them, along with ground up flax seeds, chia seeds, and generous helpings of powdered greens and dried berries, a mix of seasonings (I use cinnamon/cardamom/nutmeg/ginger/black-pepper, and powdered lemon) and enough salt (important!). This is essentially like those packets of instant oatmeal that you can buy, but in a convenient jar and mixed to my taste, and organic and much cheaper. The jars are a little less than half full of the dried ingredients.

To eat, I just add water to the jar and shake it up. It can sit for 24-48hrs depending on the temperature, and soak thoroughly, or be eaten within a half hour if I forgot to soak it ahead of time. It will start to ferment if it sits a long time, and this is fine - fermented soaked oatmeal is perfectly safe and healthy to eat as long as it smells fermented and is tangy, and not disgusting/rotten from going anaerobic.

I'll prepare 24 or 36 jars at once at home which doesn't take a lot of time. I mix up the seasoning in a big container ahead of time, so it's just pouring oats, flax, chia, fruit, salt, and seasoning in each jar. No need to measure, it's pretty easy to be consistent enough by eyeballing. I've eaten many hundreds of meals this way over the last 5ish years. At home I'll dump the jar into a bowl and the pour boiling water on so it's cooked, and add some butter - this makes it taste really good.

After eating a jar of the oatmeal I'll add water to the jar, screw on the lid and shake it, and then drink that water and then let the jar and lid dry (don't put the lid back on until they're fully dry! Since it's not greasy at all, shaking it with cold water cleans it pretty thoroughly and a little oatmeal residue dried on the jar is not a problem, so I never have to really wash these jars unless one accidentally gets rotten from soaking too long. These 24oz jars are good because unless you have really huge hands, you can fit your hand inside it to clean it when you do need to.

I always have some of these prepared oatmeal jars in the car. The chia and flax help hold it together so it's not messy - i.e. they keep it from spilling off the spoon. If you have a jar soaking and you need it to keep for a bit longer, open the lid so it can breathe. Also don't forget about a soaking jar in the car - if it ferments too long it might explode when you go to open it, this happened to me once.

I gather/grow my own greens and make powder out of them but you can buy bulk powdered greens of all sorts nowadays, and it's not that expensive. Most greens are 1/3 protein by dry weight, btw. I also gather/grow the berries (manzanita and huckleberry mostly) but if I'm out of my own I'll use raisins. You could use any kind of dried fruit. With the right mix and enough seasoning and salt, it's really tasty.

I also make jerky and crackers and other stuff for snacking on the road, one tip if you have the setup for it is to cook and then dry chickpeas or other beans with plenty of salt, they make a very nice crunchy snack that keeps a long time. But the jars of oatmeal are by far the easiest overall way I've found to eat well on the road.

If someone has a cheaper or easier way, or a healthier way that is equally cheap and easy, I'd love to learn

 

I mix powdered milk into my morning oats and also use it for quick smoothies on workdays. Figuring out where to buy powdered milk took some trial and error. It stores well, so I stock up during sales and just keep it in a sealed container in the pantry.