I will preface this reply by saying that I am not very familiar with Tor.
Would using a VPN together with Tor be able to provide 'the best of both worlds', so to speak? Would you be able to encrypt your data via a VPN node and use Tor through that encrypted connection?
I assume this would solve the matter of your traffic being visible to whoever is running the Tor relay, but it be possible for the VPN operator to (potentially and hopefully hypothetically) still perform an MITM attack on your traffic?
And lastly, is there a truly practical way to be not only anonymous but also secure (i.e. encryption)?
I hope that made sense.