Time To Fly – But Should You Be Eating The Airline Food?

Choosing to fly where you need to go is a decision based on distance and cost; you’ve probably never considered how healthy is aeroplane food. After all, it’s generally seen as more of a necessity than a formal dinner. The tray they offer you is basically all you’re getting!

But with such a limited choice you have the right to ask how healthy is aeroplane food?

Let’s find out!

Survey

The director of the New York City Food Policy centre has been conducting a survey since 2000. It’s looked at the food options offered by 12 major airlines and then calculates their nutritional value as well as the calorie count. The result of this and several other factors gives each of the airlines a health score and helps to show why you shouldn’t be eating the food.

The answer to how healthy is aeroplane food is not very!

The Good News

If you’ve chosen to fly with Delta or Virgin America then you get the healthiest option. They’ve both scored 4 out of 5 on the latest survey.

But, that’s the best you can hope for. The fact that there are no 5 out of 5’s shows that every airline could improve.

Let’s take a look at how the airlines scored, in relation to how healthy is aeroplane food.

Delta

Excellent cooperation and average calories in their meals combined with a good variety of meals to help the take joint top.

Best snack is almonds.

Virgin America

The reason why it’s joint first of the how healthy is aeroplane food survey is because it also offers information freely and provides a range of healthier meal choices.

Choose the nuts as a snack or grilled chicken for a meal.

Air Canada

With a score of 3.75, Air Canada was very helpful but slightly lacking in the healthy options. This was the same scenario with JetBlue.

Yoghurt is a good choice on both of these airlines for a healthy snack.

Alaska Airlines

Another company that was eager to help with the survey, unfortunately, the calorie content of their meals is a little high giving them a rating of 3.5.

The Mediterranean Tapas is well worth trying!

From here it quickly goes downhill. United, American Airlines and Frontier airlines all score between 2 and 3 while Southwest Airlines and Allegiant Air are 2 and under, along with Spirit Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines.

So the best choice when considering how healthy is aeroplane food is to take your own!