“No thank you” to airport food

I recently traveled to New York City to visit my lovely daughter and wanted to share a little bit about my travel day struggles with you. As if navigating through my food allergies wasn’t enough to handle on a daily basis, airports and airlines certainly don’t make it any simpler. I’m not here to complain but rather offer a suggestion and hopefully an alternative. I flew out of LAX and it seems as though my food fate was heavily dependent upon which terminal I was traveling through this time. I wish I’d paid better attention in the past because I seem to recall a certain healthy food/smoothie bar where I’d purchased the most incredible smoothie I’ve ever had the last time I traveled to Cabo San Lucas. Trust me when I tell you that I was looking all over for this place again when I was traveling to NYC this time. Unfortunately, I didn’t find it and what was even worse was that I didn’t find much that worked within my dietary restrictions in this terminal, other than fruit and coffee. Frankly I was nearly in tears at the thought of having to travel all day without food, but of course, I realized that things could be worse, so I got over it and made the best of my day. I looked at it as an opportunity to save a few calories before I got to the food Mecca of the world lol. Air travel can be stressful enough and my lack of planning this time wasn’t the best way to go. If you expect find healthy or allergen friendly options on your flight or in the airport, think again. I highly recommend packing your own snacks for the ride just incase you’re out of luck with the available options. Airlines typically have sandwiches and little snack boxes filled with fruit, cheese, crackers and hard boiled eggs but when you’re allergic to gluten and eggs like I am you get used to politely saying “no thank you” when the attendant comes by and asks if I’d like to purchase any food. Oh and when they bring those cute little bags of biscuits and pretzels by...again “no thank you”, while gritting my teeth in hunger. So do yourself a favor and pack a snack! Anything that doesn’t require refrigeration is best but in the past I have traveled with an insulated lunch bag equipped with a small ice pack. The airlines will allow you to travel with the ice pack as long as it’s completely frozen and you don’t have any liquids over 3 ounces. If you’d like to write suggestions to the airlines or airports, go for it...they won’t know there’s a need if we don’t tell them we would appreciate some better options. Just remember the squeaky wheel gets the grease my friends! Safe travels!