Airplane Food is an oxymoronic term that can elicit a shudder from many experienced travelers. Besides looking and tasting funny it’s also completely unnecessary. What most of us aren’t aware of since 9/11 is that it’s still perfectly legal to pack a lunch for your flight. Here’s why you should and how you can successfully get your edibles onto your flight.
Airplane food is Disgusting and Dangerous
Besides being revolting airplane food is also poisonous with unsurprising regularity. This is because of the pitfalls of in-flight preparation, which often require that meals are heated, then left to sit because of turbulence or something, then reheated, etc… until you get a giant bacterial colony for lunch. You can’t always tell when food’s gone bad, and with airplane food it’s nearly impossible. The problem with airplane food is that it’s nasty even before it goes bad, so it’s pretty hard to tell. On that note it’s also pretty unhealthy even before it goes bad because of the incredible amounts of sodium and more complex chemical preservatives that the stuff is soaked in.
Bring the Right Food
The TSA is pretty picky, but if you know what to bring you can avoid having the security take steal your lunch. You have to avoid liquids, gels, and sauces, which rules out bringing a salad or soup. The best thing to do is to bring things that are very recognizable and impossible to hide other stuff in. That means fresh fruit and vegetables, granola, crackers, or sliced bread. You can technically even bring cakes, though those are subject to “special inspection” which is probably code for bullying you and stealing your cake, so don’t do that. You can however bring sandwiches and other random stuff that you can put together at home as long as it’s all very easy to identify.
Make sure your Food is Appropriately Packaged
Don’t bring a loose sandwich or an open container of fries or anything else that sounds like it’ll get pathogens on your food. That’s not just for your protection; it’s also required by the TSA. Put your stuff in a container where it’s safe. This is also because all of your food has to get nuked by the X-ray machine and you don’t want to get junk all over it. Speaking of that, it’s best if you stick your food in a hard plastic container rather than a bag. That’s got nothing to do with the TSA, but it’ll reduce the odds of your sandwich falling to pieces while you’re moving.
Keeping your body safe and free of the dangers of filthy airplane food is an important pursuit when traveling, especially depending on the airline that you’re flying with. Excellent service like Lufthansa is held to a higher than international standard by its home country and is much less risky than an American or Chinese airline. The same goes for the class you’re flying in, as the risk tends to increase greatly as you drop into coach, where most of us end up flying.
Brandon is an avid traveler who seeks adventure wherever he goes. He travels the world hunting for undiscovered treasures and blogs about travel accessories for his own blog as well as others’.
Image credit: Sally_Vanilla