A sleeping pill :-)

Or a stiff drink :-)

Okay . . . nothing messy, crumbly, drippy, juicy, smelly. Nothing that needs utensils. Nothing too heavy in the stomach. And certainly nothing, um, gassy.

I'd bring a roast beef sandwich, or other sandwich or wrap of choice. Some well behaved fruit, like grapes or apples. Cheese.

I always take a ziploc bag of baby carrots and some hard boiled eggs with some freshly ground pepper and a little salt in a separate bag. Eggs have protein & fat and are filling; carrots for the sweet, 'need to gnaw on something' and for fiber. Sliced cheese, if I have it. Add another fiber source like apples if you take cheese.

I don't peel the eggs because we always need to make connections and I eat them in airports. If we could get non-stop flights, I would peel the eggs at home.

While eggs and cheese and sandwiches sound lovely, I never have the kind of carry-on that would make those things practical. I need things that don't require refrigeration and aren't susceptible to squashing. My go-to, especially on international trips of 10+ hours, is a baggie of nuts, raisins, and optional M & Ms. I have tried adding in sunflower seeds and pepitas, but they're small and have a tendency to end up other places than your mouth. Oops.

Thanks for the ideas! I will be spending dinner at the airport, so a sandwich sounds good. I'm thinking of bringing some apple slices in lemon with a bit if peanut butter...

Thanks again everyone, you all have the best ideas!

If you are spending dinner time at the airport... they will have places you can buy food.

Yes, but it is very expensive. I would like a meal I can keep in my carry on that's cheap. Airport meals are like $15!

I generally take a sandwich on a hard sourdough roll, which is not susceptible to getting squished. Usually it has turkey breast and Swiss or Provolone cheese, with lettuce, but no pickle and no tomato, as those can get messy. On my last two flights (which were international), I did get meals and did not need to have food on the plane. As a snack for shorter flights (less than 4 hours), I take a mix of pumpernickel pretzel sticks with cashews and smoked almonds, and sometimes I add sesame sticks. I buy these mostly at Trader Joe's, where you will find plenty of snacks. I take fruit if I have it also. You can find some pretty good dried fruit at TJ's as well, but my favorite is dried jack fruit, which I buy at a Thai or Japanese market. Dried mango is good also.

My next flight will be to Fiji in February, and that will be about 14 hours, I think. I'm pretty sure I will get food on those flights, but most of it will be at night, and so I'm not sure. Since I will cross the International Dateline, it will be a bit disorienting. When I go home, I will arrive before I leave.

Hey, not very thoughtful of your fellow passengers to crack open a hard boiled egg...stink! (lol).

Really dislike plane travel. Especially during the holidays and any storm season with so many delays...sometimes unavoidable.

I pack what we would often have at home. My granola. Snack style with some fresh toasted nuts on hand....pepitas and some dried fruit. I make a snack chocolate version always in the freezer. Spiced roasted chick peas. My own tea bags. Sandwiches cut in quarters or halves for those early peckish moments. Wrapped individual then some folded p-towels in the ziplock for any mess. A disposable container of charcuterie with cut cheeses, pre-slices meats, olives, celery, carrot sticks, apple slices. Crackers. I keep those white disposable ice packs in the freezer. Mostly re-use them but not a biggie to toss.

DH always packs a fresh ground small bag of coffee. Enough for a few days.

Sandwich of choice is usually tuna salad with lots of veg, apples and nuts.

That all packs rather small and is easily good for 24hrs. (perishables 12ish) but usually perishables are consumed early in the trip. We are never tempted to grab junk fast food if I have those few things packed. Always feel crapy after eating the junk.

Always a big omelet or similar protein meal before we leave and lots of water. Out the door the actual flight can easily be 4 hrs away, and then possible delays.

Last flight a couple months ago, a NewOrleans wedding, delays missed our return connecting, so spent a night in DC. Drag. Hotel bar burger. Our own coffee and tea bags helped. Fortunately we booked first class by mistake but we have so many frequent flier miles it was free. Plenty left even after covering MIL's flight.

Food at airports is crazy expensive and and not so great quality. Often long lines and we find many times, early or late, they are closed.

When I fly domestically I always bring a sandwich made with whole grain bread, sharp cheddar and grainy mustard. The cheese is always so flavorable when not refrigerated. I get Bloody Mary mix to drink.

I just flew American, and didn't bring any food with me. I was starving. To my surprise, one of the snack plates the flight attendants offered for sale along with the beverage cart was quite good. It was the "Cheese and Fruit Platter". OK, so it wasn't actually a platter, and the only fruit was a handful of grapes, and 1 halved strawberry. But there were 4 types of generously sized cheese (cheddar, brie, muenster, and one with caraway seeds), very good-quality plain large crackers, and a square of dark chocolate. The cheese was fresh and good quality, and I was very satisfied with this meal--quite full actually. It was $8.99. So, all is not lost if you are traveling coach (on American) and didn't bring food with you.

I tend to like two Chardonnay's but since travel has changed and they don't have many munchies I like the Planter's Almond packs. Last flight was two almond packs and two wines.....my whole life flying and I still am nervous...

I will be taking a long flight later this week and have already figured out what I will be bringing in the way of snacks - easy peel satsuma mandarins (my favorite holiday treat), baggies of original Chex mix (another holiday favorite), some cheese and a couple of snack size chocolates. Sounds a lot like M Millers "fruit platter" but no $9 price tag!! I'll save that for the glass of wine - or two - to go along with :-))

I am really finicky about keeping my hands clean on a plane. Even with washing carefully in the bathroom, I don't trust that my hands are clean. My husband is the same way. We have both gotten very sick after flights. You can't help people sneezing or coughing, but you can keep your hands clean.

So I do bags of nuts and use a spoon to scoop out. For cheese I use the individually wrapped cheese sticks or baby bels that can be unwrapped without touching them.

Q. So... you can actually take a pre-made sandwich thru' TSA security? Some of these suggestions sound good, but do they make it thru' security?

I've never had a problem with my cheddar cheese sandwiches.

"All food that you want to carry on to the plane must be checked in the X-ray machine at the TSA security checkpoint. The food you bring through security must be wrapped or inside a container. This means you cannot send something like an unwrapped hamburger through security. You do not need to wrap unpeeled fruits; however you do need to wrap half-eaten fruits."

Don't forget that peanut butter, yogurt, hummus etc. are part of your liquid/gel allowance.

Thanks everyone! Yes, sandwiches can make it through. I've brought a chicken salad sandwich through once that I ate at the airport. I normally fly Southwest, so the fanciest food they have is peanuts! I'm excited now, all these suggestions sound so good :)

I am of the feeling that lots of food while flying is not a good thing...and even just a snack should be small. An eight hour flight usually includes lunch....But remembering ont time the plane was sitting on the tarmac, waiting to fly to Venice for easily 3 hours, with no food and no drink...I usually carry a protein bar o a breakfast bar of some sort.
Oh and when we did get air born....there was champiagn for everyone.

The flight will only be 4 hours, but we are eating at (or in the plane) the airport, so a sandwich and maybe two snacks would be nice.

I did get a granola bar, I'm bringing a few cookies, and probably bringing a sandwich.

Domestic flights no longer come with any free meal service (or free anything!). For many people, 4-6 hours is a long time to go without eating and some sort of snack or light meal is a requirement. Better and cheaper if you bring your own! My daughter is diabetic and needs to eat on a schedule, so carry-on airplane snacks are a requirement!!

With all the uncertainty in flying these days, there's no way I'd get on a plane without enough food for an emergency-stuck-on-the-plane-for-6-hours situation. I'd have plenty of water, too. Carry a few empty plastic water bottles (lighter than metal ones) thru security and fill them up at a drinking fountain, so you have plenty of water and some to share if necessary - empty them at your destination if they're too cumbersome to carry and save the bottles for the return trip. I take a few high protein, low carb bars, in addition to nuts/cheese and fruit, maybe carrot sticks.

It may be helpful to check what food/fruits can/cannot be brought on the plane for domestic/international flights.

There may be restrictions.

dcarch

"Many agriculture products are prohibited entry into the United States from certain countries because they may carry plant pests and foreign animal diseases. All agriculture items must be declared and are subject to inspection by a CBP Agriculture Specialist at ports of entry to ensure they are free of plant pests and foreign animal diseases. Prohibited or restricted items may include meats, fresh fruits and vegetables, plants, seeds, soil and products made from animal or plant materials. For generally allowed food items please visit USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service."

Also:

https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/plant/factsheets/BringingFruitsVeggies_to_CA.pdf

Dcarch, that's for what can be brought off an airplane. You can usually bring a grocery store orange into California, even though there is a citrus prohibition, but not a home grown one. You have to throw it out at the airport. They don't clap you in leg irons. Same with sausages.

I brought sausages (salami) back from Italy, and I bought it as the duty-free shop at the Rome airport. It did remind me of Lucy bringing a big log of Provolone back from her trip to Italy, but I made it back with mine in my carry-on. You cannot take fruit from California to Hawaii, however.

I had an orange that I had saved from breakfast at the hotel confiscated when I tried to check in....can't remember where but it had nothing to do with California....they took my damn orange!

Nuts.

As far as what can be confiscated:

On a return trip from Shanghai to LAX, the Chinese authorities (?) set up shop in the jetway and confiscated all water bottles that had been bought and/or filled after security but before boarding. What? The American flight crew was dumfounded when boarding passengers told them what was going on.

Upon arrival in LAX, U.S. customs confiscated bags full of food products brought in by a multi-member Chinese family. It was hard to tell, but it looked like it was at least partly meat products. There was enough of it that perhaps it was a "commercial quantities" problem.

If you happen to be passing through Aukland, NZ, you can expect their cute little beagles to be checking out all your carry-ons as well as checked luggage. They're very serious about agricultural contamination. Good for them.

So many comments I haven't had time to read them all yet, but wanted to comment before I go back & read: I like string cheese & a jar of raw almonds when traveling. I like foods I don't have to touch w/ my fingers & protein keeps me going longer than carbs. I also like black or red grapes.

& please do spare fellow passengers from strong food smells. I once had an airline seat neighbor eat a PB&J sandwich & the smell was so strong it was unpleasant. Maybe it was because of the cabin air pressure, I don't know; on a plane, there's no escape, & she ate it v e r y slowly, because she was talking practically non-stop to her companion on her other side for the entire flight. Thankfully I had earplugs & a pillow to bury my nose in...

I get you, but I'd so rather smell PB&J (though I have to worry about those with peanut allergies) than foreigners with different customs about bodily smells!

Pillog: Do you really think a TSA or custom agent could tell a homegrown orange from a store boughten one? (I'm not sure I could.)

It will always be 'willy-nilly' depending on what any recent shake-ups are happening in different airports. Different concerns, various training methods. Training new staff I've encountered.

Small packaged sealed product is the most safe. Under 3.4 oz. And you can stuff a quart zip-lock full of many tiny packages.. They may take a small ice pack but no biggie. Disposable.

I always have home goods I make but so far no problem.

Take what you like and be prepared to accept anything confiscated.

Just the way it is these days and many years to come.

Lizbeth, I have more experience with agriculture control (driving), but at least once coming off a plane. I really think they're more able to tell liars from not, more than the oranges. "Do you have any citrus?" "I have an orange I brought from home (in CA) and didn't eat." "Did you grow it or buy it?" "It came from the supermarket." "That's fine. Have a nice day."

"We got this one in Oregon at the grocery store." "Thank-you ma'am, that's fine so long as it wasn't garden grown."

"I don't know where this one came from." "May I see it? We'll keep that here. Thank-you, ma'am."

Deplaning: "You'll see a bin to your right as you exit the jetway. Please deposit all fruits and forbidden foods in the bin on your way out."