Gluten free on a plane. Almost as fun as snakes on a plane.

Yeah, I have been Slacky McSlackerson about blogging. I have just been so stinking busy/pissed off/trying not to kill someone.

We are buying our plane tickets Saturday. A friend's family owns a travel agency and they were able to find us tickets for around $200 less than anything we could find online. Woohoo! We are totally up for long layovers, and ended up with 24 hours total travel time there and about 23 hours home.

I was a little torn about what to do about food for the flight. Some airlines offer gluten free meals and some don't. Luckily, ours (Swiss Air) does, but I have heard mixed reviews about the quality and gluten free status of said meals. Of course, there are also the horror stories. How about an apple and a pear wrapped in cellophane as the GF meal? Or your pre-ordered meal just not showing up? Or the helpful flight attendant that plops a roll on your plate, because they are being nice?

I have finally decided to order the gluten free meal that Swiss Air offers, but to not count on it being good, enough food or even gluten free. I will have back up food with me, just in case. If there is any question in my mind as to the gluten free status, Christian gets my meal and out comes my packed food from home.

One of the problem is that you can't take those nifty gel packs with you in your carry on bag. That left me with a few choices: 1) take empty bags and try to get my hands on some ice (reportedly hit or miss) 2) take frozen peas or slabs of frozen spinach (hit or miss because of laws about taking food in to other countries) 3) freeze the food and hope that after it thaws it is still cold enough to be safe 4) take something that doesn't need to be cold.

Of course, I am cheap and the thought of having to throw unsafe or not allowed food away isn't appealing to me, so I decided to take things that don't need refrigeration.

Here is the plan:
Small packets of peanut butter (Whole Foods) - Enough for 2 meals
Small packets of jelly
Toasted GF bread - Enough for 2 meals
Various types of candy
Various roasted nuts
Dried Vegetables
Dried Fruit
GF Beef Jerky (Either buy it or make my own)
GF cookies
Cinnamon or Chocolate Chex

Of course, once I am standing in Whole Foods, I will see 9 million things that I want to take, so of course is subject to change.