Beautiful morning dew (taken in July 2010)

April 25, 2010

What happens in my brain (instead of the idea of sleep) when the in-flight entertainment doesn’t work for the first part of the flight…

So I was getting my meal for my Qantas flight from Brisbane to LA and don’t get me wrong, the food was pretty good by airplane food standards because it was edible and had some sort of a flavour (full cream milk and weet-a-bix and yoghurt), but what bothered me more though, was the fact that Qantas provided full cream milk instead of 2% milk, and butter instead of margarine. How many people actually drink full cream milk in the first place and who gets to decide what selection is provided? It is no wonder that obesity is very prevalent in Western countries. Also, the yoghurt we got at the airplane was definitely what I would NOT eat regularly because of the amount of sugar in that thing. 14.5 g of sugar in a serving of yoghurt, no matter how good it tastes, is a ridiculous amount! Plus, they also had a LOT of dairy for breakfast- yoghurt, full cream milk and very little whole grain- like the 6 pieces of weet-a-bix you were fed. My musings about serving healthy food on the plane was spurred on by recent discussion with my Aussie roommates Matt and Pranav the night before my departure from Townsville about which brand of yoghurt to go with- basically one with the least fat and sugar yet still somewhat tasty (this is a very late realization, but basically I realized that natural yoghurt tastes really sour and it is the sugar that makes it edible).
Also, what bothered me was how much plastic and packaging was involved with each serving of airplane food. For my tray I had those plastic utensils, then the aluminium foil that covered the food for dinner, or the cereal box that was a plastic bowl, the full cream milk carton…the more I count, the more guilty I feel. Considering how many people fly every single day (also with long haul flights, you usually get 2-3 meals plus snacks), I just wonder how much conserving we can do simply by starting change at the airline level (rather than just aimed at the household level). At the same time, I thought back to the amount of plastic packaging are involved with snacks, the blankets, the headphones…you get the point. Could I write a letter to them expressing my concern? Where can I get some statistics with how much waste is produced by the airline industry and more importantly, will they even care about my concern?

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