The Perfect Airplane Snack: An Unofficial Guide

Traveling is stressful. Traffic is bad. Lines are long. There is, inevitably, a screaming baby on your flight. But, with a little hope and resourcefulness, you can recover. It’s time to slap on your noise-canceling headphones and pray the free tv is alright. I mean, who can really watch that many episodes of The Big Bang Theory? Once you’re in your seat, firmly nestled, you get to eat your feelings.

Variety is key here. You’re going to be stuck for a few hours, and you can’t live on dried fruit alone, no matter what a vegan tells you. Mixing up textures and crunches is important. Now is not the time to stick to your gluten-free, raw vegan diet. You have to sit for hours next to strangers. The least you can do is indulge a little bit.

We can’t even look at snacks yet, though. There’s something far more sinister. Beverages. Depending on the airline, you can get coffee, tea, juice and soda. The good ones will offer you terrible alcohol. Don’t take it. Being drunk on a plane is a terrible idea because you lack impulse control entirely. And with the change in air pressure, you get uncomfortably drunk a lot faster. Stick to water and whatever assortment of juices they offer.

When examining your potential snack situation, you have to remember that you can’t have anything that will stick or drip. They aren’t particularly generous with the thin, paltry cocktail napkins. So, look at things that come in bags like popcorn and chips. Bite sized things are ideal too.You will feel like a giant holding little tiny things in your hands. Things like this are hilarious when you’ve spent +12 hours in the air and haven’t moved once. But really, when it comes down to it, you want the satisfying pop when that snack lands in your mouth. Portability is of the utmost importance.

When you’re composing your cornucopia of snacks, please remember generosity to your fellow passengers is key. No tuna. No weird fried things. Nothing you have to slurp.

The days of leg room, kindly flight attendants and Pan-Am are over. You can sit and wax lyrical over it and talk about the “good ol’ days”. Or, you could join the rest of us and endure your flight with style, grace, and things you can dip in peanut butter and pop in your mouth.