Airline Meals

Interestingly, the NHS agrees on "diabetic" meals on airplanes - but for different reasons:

If you’re flying to your destination, don't order a special diabetic meal on board. These are often low in carbohydrate so they're generally unsuitable.

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Alternatively, you could try not eating anything on the flight - just have whatever you normally have for a snack when you're out and about at the airport.

You could ring the Airline beforehand and request a meal of your choosing, a 3 hour flight isn't too long and you could have something before the flight as AM suggests.

Ask for a vegetarian meal, (I am a veggie) they have always been OK for me, usually cheesy something or a salad. I just leave the things I can't eat.

H

Diadeb, you have no chance of getting a low carb meal on a flight! We regularly fly across the atlantic and even their vegetarian meals are rice or pasta based.

Seeing as you are only 3 hours I would suggest giving it all a miss. What we do on our 10 hour flights is pack a few Baby Bel's, nuts and other little things we can put in a bag and snack on those. At Heathrow we always have a meal once we have cleared security (generally breakfast as they are usually early flights), once we are on the flight we take one of the meals and eat the salad or any low carb bit (usually miniscule!) that is with the meal and eat our snacks just to keep us going until we can eat a proper meal at the other end.

I have just bought some Atkins bars to take with me on my next trip to the US. I will also pack almonds and pepperami. Most flights I have been on have just 1 special meal which works for diabetic, vegetarian, kosher, halal etc etc. its normally a veggie curry with rice and a piece of fruit with a salad roll and marg instead of butter. The one benefit of ordering a special meal, is that you normally get your meal first ahead of the rest of the plane

Grab something at the airport. Most diabetic meals on flights are low sugar, not low carb. As others have said, three hours Is not a long flight do you should be fine.

Hope you enjoy your holiday!

On a 3 hour flight? Nothing.

On an 8-11 hour flight I'd take my own packed lunch (or buy one from Ramsey's Plane Food in T5).

I wouldn't ever register for a "diabetic meal" because:

1. I don't trust anyone elses definition of a diabetic meal
2. On BA it's impossible to get upgraded if you have a special meal
3. Airline food is generally horrible (unless you fly business)

When was the last time you took a 3 hour flight? BA would give you a bag of nuts or a biscuit at best. Easyjet and Ryanair would try and sell you a horrible sandwich for £7.

Now I always take food with me on a BA flight after spending 6 hours on the tarmac at Dusseldorf airport with one bag of pretzels to keep me going.

Fraddycat said:

Now I always take food with me on a BA flight after spending 6 hours on the tarmac at Dusseldorf airport with one bag of pretzels to keep me going.

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<northern accent>6 hours? When I was a boy I'd have killed for a six 'our delay at Dusseldorf bleedin' airport. I once spent 3 weeks on the tarmac at Frankfurt, with only 2 raisins and a peanut for food. </northern accent>

Great discussion. Just what I needed as I'm off to Hong Kong on Friday. I take it you're allowed to take food onto a flight then?

You can take food on a plane once purchased through security.

SamJB said:

Great discussion. Just what I needed as I'm off to Hong Kong on Friday. I take it you're allowed to take food onto a flight then?

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Because of the stupid regulations, you're not allowed to take liquids through security, but you can take food. You can easily by bottles of drink airside.

Just make sure you eat it all or dump it before you get to customs at the other end. You're not usually allowed to import foodstuffs.

I frequently fly a 5 hour and a 13 hour flight. I order a kosher meal and eat only the protein. Kosher meals tend to less likely to have pasta meals and tend to have a piece of fish/meat/chicken. I carry oatcakes with me. On the 13 hour flight I ask for fruit/cheese/nuts "because I am diabetic" and I usually get them. Nuts tend to be more difficult these days because of nut free flights. At breakfast I ask for a natural sugar free yoghurt and miraculously one often appears from 1st class!! I also carry packs of mixed nuts and my latest find which I buy in bulk online are high protein low GI Energy bars from Nature's Plus which although expensive I normally eat 1/4 or 1/2 at a time. They are far more nutritious than Atkins bars and come in delicious flavours. You don't actually need as much food as usual on a flight because of the fact that sitting is not using as much energy up as you usually do. Drink loads of water. I find problems in places like Dubai airport (Starbucks humous and carrot sticks were the only thing acceptable to me!!) The best meal ever for me was breakfast on an Emirates flights - cheeses, humous, salad.

At Manchester airport if travelling with a budget (no food) airline I go to the salad bar and make up a salad bowl with cheese/egg/tuna/beans - whatever protein they have and take that onboard. It does me for the flight.
Hope some of this was helpful

Cheers Ricky, I'm flying with Emirates from Manchester to Hong Kong via Dubai tomorrow! I'll bear all of that in mind!!

If you are in Dubai airport long enough there is a Tapas bar I have recently found upstairs which has decent food!! At M/chester airport - there are 2 salad bars you can get stuff from your journey from - one downstairs and 1 upstairs.

Brilliant, thanks!

I'm not on a low carb diet for diabetes but last year flew to US with Aer Lingus. They treated me well. My brother law in coelic and treated him well too. Usually I bring snacks with me too as you never know when you will get to eat again.