Do Not Give the Monkeys Eatables. It Can Cause Mishap.

Somewhere in the first few pages of Gregory David Roberts' paperback boat anchor Shantaram, the author observes how day-to-day activity in India seems to operate solely on the power of magic. In the frenzied major cities, rickshaws, street dogs, and massive Mercedes sedans all manage to jockey for position in the maniacal and lawless traffic, and miraculously, you'll rarely see a serious collision. Each day, thousands of stainless steel lunch tiffins are punctually delivered to Bombay businessmen through an amazingly complex system, devised by people who are wholly illiterate. A billion-plus people with vastly different histories, religious beliefs, and income brackets somehow functioning quite cordially in an environment of absolute chaos. Try putting that many North Americans or Europeans in the same petri dish and see how long it takes to fully implode.

To witness it all firsthand- which I just spent the last month doing- is to take your reality and value system and shake it up like one of the Taj Mahal snow globes that orphaned peddlers sell at every street corner. I'm still waiting for all the little pieces to settle the ground, which likely won't be happening for a very long time.

The date is Saturday, March 22. We're in the Himalayan foothills, in a rural area of Himachal Pradesh, a northwestern state that borders Jammu & Kashmir on the north, sandwiched between Pakistan and western China. We're roughly 30 km from our destination, the small hilltown of Kasauli. As the jeep gingerly creeps up the terrifyingly steep and narrow road, I'm informed that I'll soon be getting a rare opportunity as a tourist: today happens to mark the annual celebration of Holi, the Festival of Colors, and I get to see all the outrageous festivities "from the safety of the truck."

It's quickly explained to me that Holi was originally the celebration of a successful harvest, and marked by worship and devotional singing. In modern times however, Holi tends not to have any heavy religious overtones for most people. It's more just an excuse to blow off some steam. Aside from lots of dancing, the most noteworthy custom involves throwing big handfuls of brightly colored powder on any person or animal within pelting distance. That, and drinking lots of bhang. Bhang is a beverage made from almond paste, milk, and spices. 'Spices', in this case, meaning copious amounts of ground-up marijuana buds. Yes, weed is very much illegal in India, but apparently during Holi, the rules are bent a little. Even old people and squares get down with the bhang during Holi, and there's no stigma attached.

No sooner is the briefing finished, and a tiny village appears around a curve in the road.



And the description turns out to be pretty accurate. Hundreds of psychedelically-colored monkeys fight for space with fornicating goats, while neon purple village folk, stoned out of their minds, dance, sing songs, and whip around on motorbikes in front of massive roadsigns warning, "Do Not Give the Monkeys Eatables. It Can Cause Mishap."

I'm fully convinced that at this precise moment in time, there is nothing else happening anywhere on the entire planet that could possibly be more surreal, absurd, and awesome than this scene. All that's missing is some John Coltrane improvisational freak-out jazz blasting through our cassette deck.

My point is that I'd officially landed in The Flipside. The polar opposite from my comfort zone in downtown Toronto, and a world away from anything I recognized as remotely familiar. And here's where I'll ham-fistedly reel this all in to the context of nutrition and training.

I don't travel a lot, but I train quite a few clients (executives mostly) who do, thanks to a rigorous schedule of business meetings in major centres like New York, Los Angeles, and London. The most common complaint I hear from these folks is that it's downright impossible to follow good nutrition principles when you're that far from home.

I'd always given them the stock bits of pep-talk ("Just ask the restaurant to make you some grilled lean protein and green vegetables"), but in truth, I couldn't honestly empathize with the challenges of maintaining a healthy eating plan while being on the road for several weeks at a time. I'd never really been out of my little bubble for that long.

Before I left for India though, I decided that while traveling, I was going to make a genuine effort to eat as nutritiously I could, given the circumstances- even if it required packing some non-perishable food for the trip. Sure, I'd eagerly sample a bit of every dish offered to me when I was a guest in someone's home or restaurant, and be very grateful for the renowned Indian hospitality (I was there to do research for a cookbook, after all). But unfortunately, the typical South Asian diet- at least without a serious makeover (as in, cutting back on the massive amounts of processed grain, sugar, and clarified butter) is not exactly the best choice for those of us who are mindful of eating for optimal health and a lean physique. What's more, I wanted to prove to my executive clients that if I could actually make good nutrition work in a rural area of the developing world, then it's sure as hell possible to do it while on a business trip to New York City.

So before leaving Toronto, I picked up a few things I could use to fill in the blanks. For all those times when lean protein, fiber, and healthy fats wouldn't be so easy to come by, or when the only option was some roadside mutton stew that would rip apart a pampered white boy's GI tract.

Aside from the protein bars and whey protein, everything shown below was purchased during a quick and inexpensive trip to Coscto a couple of days before catching the flight to Bombay. Everything (except for the bucket of protein powder) easily fit into a modest-sized knapsack, and was effortlessly transported with the rest of the luggage on numerous internal flights and train rides throughout India. It was eye-opening to see what a minimal commitment this was in terms of luggage weight and size. For two people, our shoes alone actually took up more space than all this food.




So let's open the knapsack...

Eight 9 oz bags of beef jerky
Lean meat is a somewhat scarce commodity in India. This actually has more to do with a lack of demand than a lack of supply or affordability. For religious reasons, a great deal of the population is vegetarian, and many Indians who do eat meat still refrain from eating beef or pork. Mutton and chicken are both readily available, but finding stuff that isn't bony and full of fat can be quite difficult. Pulses (such as lentils and chick peas) are ubiquitous in the Indian diet, but in order to meet my daily protein quota, I'd have to eat a lot of lentils, and I personally don't respond well to that much starch. Beef jerky fits the bill beautifully as the traveler's answer to non-perishable lean protein. Four ounces contains just 280 calories, 44 grams of protein, 24 grams of carbs, and only 4 grams of fat. There's a misconception that beef jerky is just low rent meat, laden with a list of nasty chemicals. While it's true that even the highest quality jerky usually contains preservatives such as sodium erythorbate and sodium nitrite to prevent botulism and discoloration, the cuts of meat chosen for jerky need to be very lean- fat just doesn't dehydrate the way the meat does, and if there's more than just a trace of fat hanging around, it'll quickly turn the product rancid. So you can rest assured that even the cheapest jerky will be at least 97% lean. I bought the factory farm stuff for my India trip, but if you check out farmer's markets, you can probably get your hands on some boutiquey grass fed beef jerky.

One 5 lb tub of low carb whey protein powder
Five pounds of protein powder for a month is overkill of course, but I wanted to transport the stuff in its original container (putting a big Ziploc bag full of white powder in your luggage is just asking for a long night on the phone with your lawyer). I've always viewed protein shakes (other than the post-workout kind) as "Murphy's Law meals." Whole foods are always preferable of course, but real life tends to throw us curveballs. Sometimes there simply isn't even five minutes available to scarf down some real food when your next meal's scheduled, so you need a backup plan. Having a pre-made protein shake on hand guarantees that no matter how dicey the situation, you'll never go hungry. If you're traveling with some protein powder, be sure to bring a plastic funnel along too, so you can dump the powder into any water bottle without spilling it all over the place.

Forty-eight (four 12-count boxes) of protein bars and two 16-count boxes of mixed nut and seed bars
I'm proud to admit that aside from my trip to India, I haven't eaten a protein bar in at least five years. Even the higher-end commercial varieties tend to be full of lots of nasty preservatives, binders, and sugar alcohols, so if I need a chocolate fix, I'll usually just buy a quality chocolate bar with a high cocoa content. However, there were times on this trip when we'd be hiking for hours on end and needed a portable meal replacement containing simple carbs, protein, and a bit of fat. Fruit's usually a good choice when you need a carb boost, but it isn't always safe to eat the produce in India. The bars provided a reasonable compromise, and I have to admit, some of the flavours tasted pretty damn good. I'm still not condoning them if you have access to safe whole food though. Like your mother always said when you whined about wanting a junky snack, "You know where we keep the apples, and there's plenty of water in the tap."

One 300-count bottle of fish oil capsules
The numerous health benefits of Omega-3 fatty acids (cholesterol regulation anti-inflammation being the big ones) are something that nearly all health practitioners can agree upon. Fish oil is the one supplement I swear by- in hefty doses- so packing a jumbo bottle of capsules was a given. An interesting (though admittedly unscientific) observation: The people of Kerala, India's southernmost state, have unusually flawless skin and are noticeably leaner than the people in the northern parts of the country. Keralites also happen to eat a lot of fish and include coconut and full-fat coconut milk in most of their popular dishes (coconut's a great source of healthy saturated fat and a natural anti-bacterial agent).

One 3 lb bag of raw unsalted walnuts
Healthy fats such as olive oil, avocados, and flaxseed are tricky to find in India if you don't know where to look. Including half a handful of walnuts with a couple of meals per day (along with the fish oil) ensured a generous intake of Omega-3 fatty acids. Walnuts also contain ellagic acid, a powerful antioxidant compound.

One 100-count bottle of Metamucil capsules
This fiber supplement was merely an insurance policy for those times when vegetables and fruit were either unavailable or unsafe to eat. In the developing world, that situation's pretty common.

One 100-count bottle of caffeine tablets
Coffee is almost impossible to find in India unless you're in a major city, so a couple of the little pink tabs every morning prevented me from re-enacting the withdrawal scene from Trainspotting. It's my solitary vice- cut me some slack.


Is living on beef jerky, protein shakes, and Metamucil a perfect diet? Of course not, and I'm certainly not suggesting it is. But situations like this are about compromise, and making the best choices possible in a less-than-perfect scenario. If I would've chosen to completely go off the rails for a month, would it totally negate a decade of hard training and smart nutrition? Hardly. It's just that I simply don't like the way my body reacts to eating poorly. I feel lethargic, my digestion gets out of whack, and my skin goes to hell. Who wants to feel that way when you aren't even able to come home to the comfort of your own bed for a month?

Taking a bit of non-perishable food with you on a trip is barely a minor inconvenience, and despite what some would say, hardly qualifies as obsessive. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that the people who accuse you of being obsessive about fitness and nutrition, just because you smuggle some Tupperware into a movie theatre or bring a protein shake into a board meeting, are often the same people who claim to be willing to try absolutely anything to improve the way they look and feel.

So after successfully completing this little experiment- and being blessed with experiencing the most magical country on the planet- I'll leave you with the advice I'll soon be telling my executive clients, in a language they can hopefully understand: In the real world, if something's really worth having, it probably takes a lot of strategic planning, effort, and sacrifice- nobody's just going to hand it to you. I've never run a large corporation, but I'm guessing it takes a bit more resourcefulness than searching out a grocery store in your Manhattan hotel's neighborhood. Packing a lunch for the airplane takes a few minutes of homework, but I reckon that getting your MBA took a bit of that too. It really just comes down to a matter of priorities, and how you choose to budget your time.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, I didn't get to try the bhang.