Missing The Right Bread

Hello! Welcome to Beyond Soy!

Traveling with a soy intolerance, allergy, or sensitivity isn’t the easiest thing in the world. We need to find restaurants and foods that are soy-free and, over time, we’ve identified several chains in the US that are dependably soy-free to make it a bit easier. Places like Chick-fil-A and Panera are great because they have locations all over the country and offer soy-free menu options. We love trying new foods and new restaurants, but it is great to not have to worry about finding a soy-free option at a new restaurant on travel days. However, as we once learned in the Portland airport, this doesn’t always work out.

Potbelly, the sandwich shop chain, is a great soy-free travel option for us. Ashley can get a flatbread sandwich there and they are spread around the country. When traveling through Oregon, we looked up the airport ahead of time. We were flying out just before dinner, so we wanted to pick up some food to have on the plane. We found that the airport had a Potbelly, so we thought we were good to go: Ashley could grab a flatbread sandwich and wouldn’t need to worry about airplane food or any other airport restaurants.

Don't get stuck if the restaurant doesn't have soy-free food! - IMAGE VIA PEXELS

When we go to the airport, disaster struck! The airport Potbelly didn't serve flatbread. This eliminated our soy-free dinner option, and we found ourselves surrounded by limited soy-free food options and about to get on a fairly long flight right over dinner. Not an ideal situation! Everything ended up okay as we found a couple of snacks for Ashley to bring onto the plane (things like dried fruit and trail mix), but it definitely didn’t go as planned.

This episode illustrated to us that the unpredictability of travel doesn’t quite go away, even when we think we have things under control. Ultimately, we were still able to enjoy the day and our travels because we were flexible, but we learned that you can’t always count on the “guaranteed soy-free option” to be available.