Saturday, July 9, 2011

Airplane Food

Airplanes are tricky beasts. First of all, something that large and made of metal just shouldn't be able to fly. Its beautiful, but I suspect it is more magic than science. Ahem.

Secondly, airplane food sucks really bad. To be fair enough to the airline I'm using, I've never flown Swiss Air, and I'll withhold judgement until I have--- they were even accommodating on the phone. But usually, especially with domestic flights, "meals" are bags of crackers with bags of pretzels with boxes of cookies.

So, the quest for travel food begins. Not just things you can bring with you camping, but things you can bring with you in close quarters, and things with severe restrictions on size and type. So, my rules for Airplane Foods will be:
1. Shelf Stable.
2. Non-liquid and Portable.
3. Non-Offensive.
1: These things should be shelf stable at least to a degree. It should last up to a day or two, safely, without refrigeration. I don't want to have an ice pack or worry if I crash in a hotel room and leave something in my bag. 2: Of course, dainty and crushable things (like kale-chips) would just turn to dust and saucy, soupy, and salady things would just be a pain. Also, there are 2oz liquid restrictions on the plane, which cuts out some people's beloved smoothies (which I'm not big on anyhow). And last but not least, number 3: Non-offensive. By this I mean odor, sound, and sight-- what you wouldn't want to eat while touching elbows with someone on a plane. If you live in an arrogant, self-serving vein of people, you'll scoff at this. However, I believe that something that sets us primals away from other people is the general (this is both assumptive and observant of me) observation in my eyes that we are a more considerate, self-content bunch than many other people from many other lifestyles. Especially other ''special-diets.'' I'll break no specific bones about it, but for sake of argument lets agree that we're simply less ''in-your face'' about how we eat. Anyhow, rule 3 cuts out things like anchovies, whole dried sardines, carrots, ice, etc. They're too loud or visually bibzzare or smelly. These change once you leave the plane (thankfully)

So the way that I'll do this is to list the foods, and then list the rules that they possibly skirt-- ie: I'll include carrots, but list '3' because they're loud. You can cast them aside as you desire!

Food
Notes or Drawbacks
On the cusp of:
Hard Cheese

1
Nuts & Seeds Caloric, High Omega-6

Hard Salami (and Summer Sausage) 1
Hard-boiled egg

1 (3?)
Dried Meat



Dried Fish



Dried Fruit or Veg



Coconut Flakes



Radish Chips (and other Root Chips)

Kale Chips

2,3*
Chicharrones

2
Primal Crackers Caloric, High Omega-6

Nut Butters Portable packets.

Olives Esp dry, like beldi!

1
Veggies and Fruits

3
Tinned fish

3

*3 Not that kale chips are offensive, but they're really freaking ''health-foody.'' I have no bones about that, but I imagine Pvt. McNormal running home and telling everyone about that hippie he sat next to on the plane eating Kale-Chips dipped in Coconut-butter... Hahaha!

This all being said, I'm simply pondering travel. I'm thinking with a primal-muffin from mom and some nut-crackers, my trail mix, couple radish chips and some Unikaas Reserve, I'll be more than prepared. It may be less-than ideal food for every-day consumption-- but you're about to travel and your airplane food certainly should not be your biggest concern!

3 comments:

Jeffrey said...

I would say that the calorically denser foods would be more desirable because these are meant to be a meal and the more calories the better.

Shaleah said...

The calorically dense part isn't what concerns me as much as that they're nutritionally sparse for being so calorically dense!

Deus Invictus said...

How long is the flight going to be though? the longest flight I've done since I went Paleo was 5 hours, and I just grabbed some Jerky, Macadamia Nuts, and was done with it. May not have been the most nutrient dense, but it could have been worse and they held me over for the flight.