GF meals on airplanes

[Zizzle]

Luckily most flights don't even offer food, but here's an example of Delta including gluten-containing Kellogg's cereal in a GF-labeled meal! Be careful...

http://glutenfreemom.typepad.com/gluten ... free-.html

[Martha]

NO!!!!! Although why anyone should expect to trust airlines when we don't trust restaurants where we can actually talk to the people who put the meals together I don't know.

I leave next Wednesday for a trip to Thailand. I requested a GF meal from China Airlines, but I figure it will for sure have soy in it, or dairy. I'll pack snacks, but it's about a 36 hour trip, so I'm not looking forward to surviving that long on snacky stuff.

Is it safe to carry cooked meat along? Boiled eggs? I bought some Justin's almond butter, but I've never eaten it before, and I realize that it's risky to try something new on a trip. And I didn't leave enough time to experiment beforehand.

[brandy]

Hi Martha,

Some things I bring on the airplane are: nut butter/Udi's bread premade sandwiches (with nut butter I've already tried out). I don't normally eat nut butter sandwiches but heck we need something to eat on the planes. I've packed turkey sandwiches. I've eaten unrefrigerated turkey sandwiches 6-7 hours into the flight and never had any gut issues. I also usually bring 2-3 apples and a large ziplock of carrot sticks. I'm not sure if you are able to eat apples or carrot sticks. 36 hours is a long time.

Have fun! Brandy

[brandy]

Hi Martha,

This sounds obvious but freeze your sandwiches if you take them before you go. You'll get more time out of them. Brandy

[Gloria]

Martha,

I'm not sure if you were a member when several of us took long-distance trips. You might want to look at the section called "Tips on Traveling With MC or Another Inflammatory Bowel Disease" posted here:

http://www.perskyfarms.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=62

Good luck on your trip! You have to consider your eating options for a long flight. I hope all goes well for you.

Gloria

[Martha]

Thanks for the suggestions and links.

Brandy, do you use turkey you cook yourself, or turkey lunch meat?

Gloria, thanks for alerting me that there's a section about travel. I read through that, and hope I'll survive as well as you did on your trip to Hawaii and Gabes on her trip to Europe.

My son is scouting out sources of GF food, although I'm hoping that we can just eat "real food"--rice, meat, veggies, and fruit. He's already found a store that sells rice milk. If the contents are all listed in Thai, we'll be out of luck, but he says a lot of things are imported from Malaysia, and if the rice milk ingredients are in Malay, I can read that.

At this point, I'm just concentrating on the travel food.

Love,
Martha

[Gabes-Apg]

Martha
my trip home from europe was basically snacking on rice cakes, corn chips and apple juice for the 36hr transit. Not ideal but 'fact of life' for me, being highly reactive to Soy and not able to eat banana's, meant there was no other safe food on the plane or at any of the airports. we had worked long hours in the days before i travelled home, so there was no ability to prepare anything better.

another aspect, even though i was travelling business class, on the trip home the hosties on the plane 'forgot' to defrost and warm the GF/DF meal that was provided for me, travellers with special needs tend to be a bit of a headache for them so dont rely on your special request being met. by the time they found the meal, it would be another hour before it was edible, and by that stage they would not be able to serve it as we would be descending into singapore.

my suggestion is try to have a healthy martha safe meal, with large serve of protein before travelling and if you have to fast a bit, and rely on snack foods during the transit your body will be ok. Keep hydrated. The less than ideal transit is worth getting to the location!!!

[Martha]

Thanks for the advice, Gabes. I will be sure to eat a hearty protein-rich breakfast before heading to the airport.

It's too bad that the stewardesses forgot to defrost your meal for you. I can understand that they have a whole airplane full of people to take care of, but it's disappointing that when you've asked for and been promised special consideration, you don't get it after all.

Is apple juice generally free of additives that are unsafe for us? I don't care for apple juice (way too sweet for me), but I know it's important to drink enough while traveling.

Love,
Martha

[brandy]

Hi Martha,

I still have problems w/ Boars Head so I have turkey I cook myself.

Really 2nd Gabes idea re: large protein breakfast. I also will eat heartily in the parking lot after parking my car b/f going into airport.

My sister's take is that you have less jet lag by eating light, i.e.not having heavy meals on the plane so hey, you might come off the plane refreshed compared to your fellow passengers. Brandy

[hoosier1]

Actually, I do quite well eating Delta's food. And have had to learn to enjoy it as I eat on the plane as much as I do on the ground. I have never verified their ingredients but for lunch/dinner they usually offer a salad type meal which chicken. They have a separate bag of salad tossings or breadstick type things that I toss out, and I also toss out the dressing container (usually Ranch). They have a fresh fruit cup that I enjoy. They also have those freaking good caramel brownies which I no longer eat. I do miss those so much!! The flight attendants are glad to have my brownies though.

And I usually tell the flight attendant before we go wheels up that I want the salad. That way, they won't run out by the time they get to me and I am stuck with that beef-of-some-kind and bread meal. Yuck!!!!

But you are correct, their breakfast meals are not very broad for us GF eaters.

I do agree with Gabes about, at times, fasting. I also tend to not hydrate very well as it just makes my bladder hurt. The best solution for me, and luckily it is easy for me, is to fall fast asleep for most of the flight.

[maestraz]

Hi Martha,
If you have a Whole Foods near you, they have a turkey breast in their "deli" section that is delicious, like home cooked turkey, and nothing injected. I have done fine with it. It's pricey, but worth it.

Last time I flew, but nowhere near the length of your upcoming flight, I took peanut butter on Glutino crackers, fruit, veggies, and Glutino peanut/ chocolate snack bars. I also like Bakery on Main Cranbery Maple Nut bars--but not surenwhether those might be regional to New England.

A year in to LC, I don't trust airline meals, even if they were offered, which hasn't happened yet on my flights.

I was relaying some of your posts (Gabes, Martha) about 36 hours of flying to my husband, and his question is, WHY? Neither of us could ever do that without a break/layover. I was flipped out last fall about flying from CT to LA.

Martha, off this thread topic, thinking about Abigail. How are things?

[Martha]

Thanks for those suggestions, Suze.

I have some Lara Bars, some Enjoy Life bars, rice crackers, Justin's almond butter (unfortunately untried) and I'm planning to make fried rice and freeze it to take along. Also carrots and apple slices, which I do okay with. I've never been big on sandwiches, so I'm going with the rice.

It isn't actually one 36-hour long flight. That would be awful! I fly from Dallas to LA, LA to Taipei, Taipei to Bangkok, with a couple of hours at each airport. When we used to do these trips to Asia when our kids were small, we always built in layovers to rest, get over jetlag, and not have the kids drive us crazy. Now that we're old and childless, we just try to get there as fast as possible. It takes a toll on the body, though. DH used to get over jetlag in a few days, and now it takes a least a week, and more like 2 weeks before he really feels like himself after such a long trip.

Abigail is having surgery on Wednesday, May 2, to insert a G-button so they can feed her with a gastric tube. The NG tube is too easy for her to pull out, and it looks like it's not going to be an easy task to get her to drink. She still aspirates thin liquids, and she knows it doesn't feel good, so she just refuses the bottle and even a cup. She will take thickened milk off a spoon, and baby food, but gets her main food still through the tube. The 2-week feeding clinic at Baylor Hospital was unsuccessful, since she refused to drink.

May 2 happens to be the day that I leave for Thailand. We had really hoped that the surgery could be scheduled sooner, but one can hardly expect doctors and hospitals to be too concerned about grandmother's travel plans!

Thanks for asking about Abby. I'd appreciate prayers for the surgery, her future feeding skills, and that the rest of the family can cope well while she is in the hospital. They are talking about a 3-day stay.

My DIL in Thailand, whose baby is due in mid-May, looks like she's ready to deliver any time. I hope I make it there before the baby come!

Love,
Martha

[Lesley]

I read these posts and am terrified. My whole family, and my new grandson are in Israel. I have to go to London on the way and the flights are exhausting.
I can't eat ANY of the foods you guys have listed, and am so limited in foods I have no idea how I will make these trips.

Martha, travel safe. I hope all is well with your family.

[MBombardier]

I would suggest to be cautious about peanut butter. My girls and I were on a Southwest flight and the stewardess announced that there was someone with a peanut allergy so they would not be serving snack peanuts because the person could not be around peanuts at all. My girls had just broken out some trail mix with peanuts in it, so they put it back in the backpack. Good thing we had other stuff for them to eat.

[Martha]

Marliss, your girls were considerate and thoughtful to put away their own snacks that had peanuts. Not everyone is like that.

My grandson has just a suspected peanut allergy, and my son doesn't allow any peanuts in the house. For anyone.