Good Lunch for Air Travel?

[Jesse]

I'm flying internationally tomorrow on a flight in which no inflight meals will be provided and I want to pack a good lunch and I'm looking for ideas. Your suggestions are appreciated!

[bdavid]

no inflight meal on an international flight? That's odd. I do pack lunches for domestic flights, though. I worry about food safety when it's at room temperature for so long so I don't use meat or chicken or anything like tuna or chicken salad. I usually do a cheddar or swiss cheese and banana pepper sandwich, fruit, cookie - your standard brown bag.

[Titchou]

OK, so when did I miss them letting you bring food in from outside the terminal? I thought that was still a no-no along with beverages....

[hungryone]

I'm a fan of good bread & cheese, plus some sturdy fruit (like an apple or hard pear). Cheese is fine out of refrigeration for quite some time, and you can put together a reasonable ploughman's lunch with a little planning. Bread travels better than crackers. If you're fastidious, cut up the apple ahead of time & put it in a ziploc, then you don't have to worry about peeling/washing, etc. Or, if you want something more composed, try a halved pita, spread with hummus and filled with sprouts, sliced cucumber, lettuce, crumbled feta, and pitted black olives. I find that pita doesn't disintegrate as easily as sliced bread or soft rolls. The water content of those veggies help with the plane-induced dehydration, too. Baby carrots or carrot sticks (all that crunching helps my inner ear) travel well, too.

Along this same vein, toasted wholegrain bread spread with almond butter & nutella has enough protein to feel like "real food" while still being tasty & fun (hey, doesn't everybody love nutella?). Yes, the toast will soften, but it won't be as mushy as untoasted bread after 6 hours in your lunchbag. Pair it with some cut-up mixed fruit (use a recycled container you can toss when you're finished) sprinkled with a little sugar & fresh mint.

Just remember that you can't get liquids beyond the security checkpoint, so don't try to pack soup, yogurt, or salad dressing. Liquidy things spread on bread or already tossed into a salad seem to get thru security just fine, but separate containers of liquidy things get confiscated, in my experience. When all else fails, I subsist on Kashi TLC bars (7gs protein! 4 gs fiber!), which no one's ever tried to confiscate (ha). They're the first thing I pack in my carry-on.

[hungryone]

OK, so when did I miss them letting you bring food in from outside the terminal? I thought that was still a no-no along with beverages....

Food is fine, just as long as it's not liquid.

[Schuarta]

Also, no utensils, plastic or otherwise. Remember the Cub Scout who brought his mess kit to school!

[edible complex]

bring a muffaletta!

[Titchou]

Food is fine, just as long as it's not liquid.

It hasn't always been flying out of Birmingham...but then, we're a third world country anyway......

[Isabella Maja]

I make my own trail mix with dried sour cherries, almonds, pecans, golden raisins, walnuts and sometimes macadamia nuts. I put Celtic grey sea salt (lots of minerals) & togarashi spice mix. If you don't have any, use cayenne.

Sometimes I use garam masala & sea salt.
Mix up whatever nuts & fruit you like. Sometimes I do dried pineapple, apple, etc.

I bring little bathroom sized Dixie cups to scoop some out and can use this to eat without touching it. It's nice neat snack, crunchy (your ears & also satisfying), spicy and provides protein, carbs & lots of minerals & other good stuff. Sits well in the back pack & I make quite a few snack sized bags of this for the remainder of the trip & back.

Almond butter & banana sandwiches on good bread, cheese sandwiches. Sometimes tuna salad in a cup with crackers separately in a plastic container. Cut up apples, orange segments (great when you are thirsty but might be on a segment of a flight where drinking something is not a good idea), bananas, pineapple chunks, carrots, celery (stuffed with almond butter too or homemade pimento cheese). Different sliced cheeses, this always saves me too. Crackers or bread are nice, but not necessary. I also bring a little bit of chocolate and lots of good mints.

I used to make tempeh sandwiches with sauteed onions & bell peppers - that was really great & my & everyone I gave one to's absolute favorite meal for a plane . . . . but they stopped making my favorite tempeh & I'm not supposed to eat it anymore anyway.

Have a great trip, peruse your pantry or stop on the way & get lots of nuts!

[Yvette]

I brought filled king cakes onboard, no problem. Just had to put it through the scanner.

I have seen people eat muffs onboard, and I know they didn't get it at the airport.

Too late to solve this problem, as he has already left.