© Norman Sperling, November 13, 2014
Drivers eat. We’re going to keep eating. It’s a fair co-use of time, often the only time available to snarf down a pseudo-meal. Eating can also re-spark wakefulness toward the end of a long day.
Yes, eating is infamously distracting, and distractions kill.
Some foods can be made minimally distracting, well within tolerable limits.
Non-distracting foods would sit in a non-spilling container, so you won’t worry about sudden stops and sharp turns. They’d be in a container easy to dip into. Stick a finger-depth cup in your cup-holder.
The food has to be dry, easy to grasp with 2 fingers, and a single piece should be enough to chew on but not too much.
Several such foods already exist, and more are adaptibly close.
* Marshmallows are nearly perfect for this, though scarcely nutritious.
* Pretzel nuggets, with or without fillings of peanut butter or cheese.
* Baby carrots.
* Wheat-thins and many other crackers.
* Dried apricots are almost too big, and a little sticky.
* Dried cherries are rather small but so tasty you don’t chew several at a time. Some brands are stickier than others.
* Cherry tomatoes.
* Donut holes.
* Spoon-size shredded wheat.
* Necco wafers unwrapped from their tube and sitting loosely in the cup.
* Plain or dry-roasted almonds and other large nuts. Peanuts are so small that a mouthful wants a few, which can be clumsy to pluck from the container.
Several other foods need only the most minimal, quick, low-tech handling to make them work:
* sour balls and Jolly Rancher hard candies are hard to unwrap while driving. Unwrap 3 or 4 in advance. But only enough for this stage of the trip; they get sticky in heat or humidity.
* Celery sticks are 2 bites long. Cut them into single-bite size in advance.
* Grapes need to be pulled off their stems in advance.
Don’t use raisins because they are definitely too small, and very sticky.
Dropped pieces could distract a driver. Grapes, tomatoes, hazelnuts, and sourballs roll around and get underfoot. Dry ones handle well enough to not get dropped.
