After having carefully reviewed your cheap traveloptions, including cheapairplane tickets, discount hotel rooms, and cheap vacation packages, youmight want to consider which airlines serve the healthiest and unhealthiestmeals before purchasing your airline tickets.
Given that most airlines tend to be competitively priced, usingoffering ticket prices within a couple of bucks of its competitors, you maybenefit most by ultimately flying with the airline serving the healthiestfoods.
Based on the nutritional data provided by major U.S. airlinescoach class meal offerings on domestic flights Charles Platkin, a public healthadvocate and professor at Hunter College and the City University of New YorksSchool of Public Health, has been studying over the last five years whichairlines offer the healthiest inflight fare and which are junk food purveyors.
The average number of calories per menu item was 405 thisyear, up 13 percent over last year. Theaverage calorie count was 360 in 2012, which was the first year he conductedthis study.
Platkin assigned a health score for each airline whichcombined calories, nutritional value, and other factors. On a scale from 5 to 1 years, with 5 beingthe healthiest, the airlines ranked as follows:
- Delta 4 stars
- Virgin America 4 stars
- Air Canada 3.75 stars
- JetBlue 3.75 stars
- Alaska Airlines 3.5 stars
- United 2.75 stars
- American 2.5 stars
- Frontier 2.25 stars
- Southwest 2 stars
- Allegiant 1.75 stars
- Spirit 1.75 stars
- Hawaiian 1 star
Lowcost carriers with shorter average flights earned poor scores, likely becomethey only tend to serve snack food, which tends to be high in calories and lowin nutritional value. A key takeawayfrom the study is that whichever airline you fly on, avoid the snacks if youvalue healthy eating.
Anoccasional less than healthy meal is not the difference maker when it comes toproper weight management or overall health. However, for frequent fliers, the calories and fat and salt consumed inthe air can add up. Even infrequentfliers should be aware of the nutritional implications of their inflightconsumption.
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