Packing Healthy Travel Snacks for the Airport

Anyone who travels frequently and also tries to eat clean knows that the only way to do both is to pack your own food. We travel a lot and so over the years I have made a mental note of a number of Clean Cuisine “go to” snacks to pack. The thing is, if you are going on a long trip packing a lot of food can be a bit cumbersome, so it’s good to have a few airport-friendly places to eat also.

Starbucks Perfect Oatmeal is a Great Travel Breakfast on the Go

On our recent trip to California with my husband and son we were scheduled to fly from West Palm Beach to Houston (landing in Houston just after lunch) and then from Houston to San Diego. The first leg of the trip all went according to plan. We left West Palm Beach early in the morning and since I know there’s a Starbucks in the West Palm Beach airport we all had the relatively new Starbucks Perfect Oatmeal with additional fresh sliced bananas on top for breakfast. 

Healthy Travel Snacks

I also packed light snacks for the airplane …carrots sticks, red bell pepper strips with hummus (keep container small or they will confiscate your hummus at security), Lara Bars, and a delicious new raw snack called Go Raw.

I also love the fact that none of the products contain added oils or refined sugars, they are 100% vegan, raw, handmade, and organic.

Pack for Contingencies

All went according to plan until we got to Houston. We landed on time and had a 1 hour delay. We figured we would grab a quick and small bite in Houston and then eat a late bigger “proper” lunch in San Diego. Well that didn’t work out. It was still not exactly lunchtime when we arrived in Houston and since we couldn’t find anything decent to eat we snacked on the 2 Moms in the Raw Blueberry Granola Bar. Then we boarded the plane and took off. About an hour and a half into the flight the pilot announced one of the engines was failing so we had to turn around. WHAT?!?! This was disturbing on many levels. First of all it was a bit unsettling to think the engine would be failing.  It was also upsetting to think we had made 90 minutes of flight progress only to be told we would have to turn around and start all over again. Twenty minutes after the engine announcement the pilot announced the plane was too heavy and so we would need to make an emergency landing. It was going from bad to worse. Plus, I would soon be running out of snacks…

We made our emergency landing safe and sound, deplaned and the passengers all raced to a gate that was supposed to have a new working plane ready to go.

By this time I was all out of snacks and not very happy.

When we got to the new gate the plane was there but because one of the passengers accused the pilot of being drunk he had to take a drug test. I wasn’t very happy about this because I knew we would be sitting at the airport–snackless–for a long time. The pilot was not particularly happy either and loudly told the passengers to expect a several hour delay. Ugggh…

By this time I was getting super annoyed. And hungry. Yet we were told we could not go far because at any moment the pilot could be declared sober and ready to go. This meant we could not go to any of the airport restaurants (which happened to be the only places in the Houston airport with decent/ healthy food to eat) Since I didn’t have very many options I bought a prepared $10 salad that couldn’t have contained more than 100 calories. $10 for 100 calories is not exactly “value received” plus it didn’t even make a dent in my appetite. I think I was actually hungrier after eating the salad than before!

Subway Subs…Eat Fresh at the Airport?

Hours passed and still no word about whether the pilot was truly intoxicated….and no word as to when we could expect to take off. My son declared he was “STARVING” and that he needed to eat at once. The only place close enough to go was Subway. Hmmmm. I honestly had not been to a Subway in years and I was very skeptical about their “eat fresh” marketing campaign. Still, it was clearly a better choice than the other fried food, burger and pizza options cluttering the Houston airport. So off we went to get a Subway Sub…

And I have to say, I really was pleasantly surprised that Subway Subs did truly deliver a fresh and fast meal for my little guy. He created his own vegan sub with lettuce, onions, pickles, guacamole, peppers, olives, etc. —no cheese, no meat—on a whole grain bun. Not a bad choice at all. Here’s the video clip below. As you can see…the little guy was in fact pretty hungry. He would definitely win a Subway Sub “speed-eating” contest at that speed….