Airplane food … the final culinary frontier (as photographed by Andres Rueda). Passengers have come to expect the worst when it comes to what they eat at 35,000 feet.
The quality, or lack of, is an even greater issue for anyone who has specific dietary requirements, especially those who are keeping a watch over their weight.
That’s why every year Dr. Charles Platkin, a nutritionist from the CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College, rates the healthiness of the on-board meal and snack offerings from 12 of the country’s major airlines.
This year, Virgin America was declared to have the “healthiest” choice. Air Canada and Alaska Air were a close second and third respectively.
Improvements in the offerings from American and JetBlue were noted, while United and Delta were criticised for being sub par.
Platkin based his survey on seven criteria: health of meals, health of snacks, food variety, calories, improvement from last year’s survey, menu innovation and cooperation in providing nutritional information.
The survey was particularly impressed with Virgin America, singling out its nuts as the choicest snack, and Protein Meal Box as the best meal on board its planes.
On the flipside, Delta’s Signature Sandwich Combo with chips and cookies was called out for totalling a whopping 700 calories (that works out at 35 per cent of a woman’s recommended daily intake, and 28 per cent of a man’s) – by comparison a Big Mac is 550 calories.
Written by insider city guide series Hg2 | A Hedonist’s guide to…
