After having spent the better part of last year on the Pacific Crest Trail essentially eating the worst foods humanity has ever produced it was time to shake things up. I ended up attempting adopting a Ketogenic lifestyle. But what if you want to adopt this not-so-conventional lifestyle while you’re already doing the not-so-conventional vanlife lifestyle…?
While my first attempt was short lived, it wasn’t without merit. I still ate better after that, and recently I started my second attempt, so far so good. However, now I’m back in the van and that poses some new challenges, which I’ll lay out for you here.
You will need more water
Water is the essence of life, but also the essence of cleaning. And cleaning you shall do more of. Because you’re gonna be cooking with a lot more oils, butters and other fatty stuff. Even though you’re probably already pretty good at conserving water in a van, it’s simply gonna require more water to clean your dishes to get all that grease off!
If you haven’t built out your van, take this into consideration when sizing your water tanks. If you’re like me, and you’re stuck with the 40L/40L Fres/Gray, you better suck it up and fill up more often. Or put in the work and upgrade your rig!
Keeping it cool
The upside of fresh food is that you’re eating food that is fresh. The downside is that you have to KEEP it fresh if you want to enjoy a non-soggy vegetable when you’re for example spending a week in the Swedish wilderness. You better get your hands on at least a very large fridge.
Secondly, I’m currently really hitting the limit on keeping stuff fresh with only my (60L) fridge. So if you have the option I would highly recommend Also getting a well-sized freezer.
You might need more kitchen (gear)
Going (clean) Keto means you’re gonna be spending a lot more time in your kitchen. This advice isn’t really gonna help you much if you’ve already built out your rig, but sizing your kitchen big enough to accommodate cooking is really, really important here. When i built out my van I anticipated I would spend some time in the kitchen for the majority of my meals. This means I can proudly say I built in a well-sized kitchen sink + tap, a 2-burner stove and a shit-ton of countertop space to work on. Two parts of my counter can be extended and then there’s my regular table I can fold out. If shit hits the fan I can even put in my convertible office-desk.
Gave a good one!
- Arjen