Director of the New York City Food Policy Centre at Hunter College, Dr Charles Platkin has carried out research on the nutritional values of airline food.
He looked at a variety of airlines and the food they served passengers on economy flights.
The study found that Virgin America topped the ‘healthy’ list for “creating interesting, thoughtful food infall categories except for individual snacks”.
For those wanting a nutritional meal, Charles, writing on his website Diet Detective, recommends the ginger chicken soba noodles, the provencal tuna sandwich or the vega wrap with veggies humous.
Charles said: “These are meals that you can fill up with help you avoid the junk.”
Closely behind Virgin was Air Canada and Delta, whose food the the expert describes is “healthier than those of other airlines”.
On Delta, Charles recommends the nuts as the best snack, saying it is better than going for the lower-calorie pretzels. And for the meal he suggests going for the grilled chicken wrap or sesame grilled chicken wrap, without the cookie.
On Air Canada, Charles said the airline keeps the calorie count down for meals and snacks and that “it’s nice” they do not offer snack boxes.
The expert recommends the chicken soup as a low calorie option. The celery and carrots are an “ok choice” as well, if you only have half the dip.
When it comes to the meals, he suggested the organic mango chicken, the California roll or the roasted vegetable sandwich.
At the bottom of the rankings was Spirit and Frontier airlines.
On Spirit airlines, the only thing Charles would consider recommending was the cup of noodle soup.
As for Frontier, he did not have much to say other than to bring your own food.
Although the food investigator ranked the airlines' food based on their nutritional value, his study revealed one astonishing fact.
And that is there is no such thing as healthy food or snacks on board a flight - on any airline.
So for those who really do care about their waistlines, the best option may well be to bring your own food.
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