Airport food

MSN.com posted an article yesterday from the Eat This, Not That franchise about the best and worst airport food -- donuts, pretzels, ice cream, coffee drinks. Not only would I not eat anything from the "worst" column . . . most of the foods in the "best" column were fat-laden, starchy and generally not worth the calories either. As a regular flier, I'm continually disappointed with the unappetizing "healthy" foods available at airports, which include under-ripe bananas, mealy apples, limp salads (when did we decide salad meats must be cut in rectangular tubes?), and luke-warm yogurt.

With celiac disease, options are even poorer. While I can get by with a low-fat muffin from Starbucks, JFG is often stuck with said mealy apple or saggy salad. Even the nuts -- probably the best wolf-in-sheep's-clothing, bad-food-masquerading-as-good-food food product available -- frequently contain gluten (for what purpose? 'Tis a mystery).

As a result, for long trips, the only solution is to pack JFG a bag of portable gluten-free snacks. I sometimes include fruit, but have discovered that apples or pears or bananas, having been banged around during check-in and security, get bruised and disgusting. As an alternative, here's what I pack:

• Home-made gluten-free cookies, usually with peanut butter as an ingredient for protein
• Rice chips (god bless rice chips), which come in small bags
• Gluten-free energy or breakfast bars -- JFG likes the apple ones made by Glutino, although I think they kind of taste like garbanzo beans
• Chex Mix -- this is a relatively new discovery, but since General Mills now makes three kinds of Chex cereal without gluten I can toss together some butter, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, and a little sugar with rice or corn Chex and some cashews and make a pretty mean and portable snack (god, also bless General Mills)
• Crackers; JFG likes Mary's Gone Crackers in original or black pepper flavor, I like herb and sesame flavors which don't leave large pieces of black pepper in your teeth to alarmingly discover later

Thoughtfully, manufacturers of gluten-free foods usually package their products in human-size (as opposed to King-Kong-sized) boxes and bags, so all of the food described above fits into a plastic grocery bag. And while there are no actual vegetables or fruits included, there is enough of a variety that JFG can usually make it to his destination.

Airports! -- specifically, airports that include the word "international" in their title! -- travelers have food allergies. Airport food is extremely poorly labeled, leaving travelers to choose between starvation or poisen. Get it together.