United Airlines: Atrocious Food Service
I was just in the US, something I posted about earlier. Somehow, I always seem to end up on United, and I’m often not very impressed with their food, but it’s really gotten very bad lately.
Vegetarian Food
I don’t eat meat, and you would think a vegetarian meal would be possible on a flight with meal service. Especially on United, since almost every flight I’ve been on in the last several years has offered two main entrees, one of which was vegetarian. Usually the stewardesses can be found working the isles during food service, saying ‘pasta or chicken’ to each passenger in turn.
The problem of course is that they tend to run out of vegetarian meals first, and if you are a vegetarian seated in the back of the plane, you may end up without a meal if you don’t make arrangements in advance. You have to ask yourself why, if they often run out of vegetarian meals first so often, they can’t stock more of them to begin with, but for whatever reason this doesn’t seem possible.
I remember flying as a kid, and getting a vegetarian meal reserved on the spot by just asking a stewardess to set one aside for me, but for whatever reason they don’t do that anymore.
To get a vegetarian meal on United, you have to book this at least a few days in advance, and you have to specify exactly what sort of vegetarian meal you want. You have to choose between things like a diabetic meal, a Halal (Muslim) meal, a western vegetarian, a vegan meal, a lacto-ovo meal, an Asian vegetarian meal, and so on. Even at this stage, it’s not possible to order a ‘normal’ — what everyone else gets — vegetarian meal. For what it’s worth, I usually end up choosing Asian vegetarian, and it’s usually Indian food of some sort. Other choices usually end up being a very dry, tasteless and processed vegan meal, or perhaps one that’s nothing but cheese and eggs.
Processed Foods
In the past these special meals on United used to be of pretty good quality. It’s always an issue that they tend to apply dietary restrictions above and beyond what you stated, for example insisting vegetarians must eat margarine with their bread, even though many like me would prefer butter as it’s a more natural food. Nevertheless, these kinds of things are small issues, and considering how difficult it can be to cater to everyone’s dietary needs, I don’t need to be too picky.
The real problem now however, is these special meals tend to be almost all highly processed foods, intended for long storage, emphasizing high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). I can’t say anything about the regular meals, because I don’t get a chance to eat them, but the special meals no longer have any fresh or ‘local’ ingredients at all. If there’s fruit, it’s canned fruit. The only exception might be a little iceberg lettuce in a salad. It’s always necessary to read the ingredients on label of all the foods, to make sure you aren’t eating total crap, especially if you want to avoid HFCS.
Considering all the places United flies, it really makes you wonder why they can’t source a little true local food, or at least something fresh from time to time.
For the beverage service too, it’s nearly all based on HFCS. If you don’t want something to drink with HFCS, it’ll probably be alcoholic, water, milk or orange juice. This is not really a selection most people would consider acceptable. Especially since orange juice itself is very processed, and known to contain an unusually high level of pesticides on average, when compared to other foods and drinks.
Reading the Labels
Some of the common things in United meals are just a total mix of crap. For example their vinaigrette must be reduced fat or something, and the ingredients is just a long list of chemicals. Many things are not labelled! For example, the jams and jellies are not labelled, and have the distinctive taste of HFCS.
The breads tend to be really processed and come in little plastic packages.
There was a bread on my outgoing flight with a Dutch sounding name that I forgot, that supposedly comes from Holland, but it’s made with HFCS. While some foods are made with HFCS here, it goes by different names like glucose-fructose syrup, so it’s unlikely to truly be a Dutch food if it has HFCS and is labelled as such. In any case, it wasn’t a name I recognized.
Here’s a bread that was served on my return flight:
This picture makes it look big, but this was really a small cocktail sized piece of bread, about 2″or 5cm on a side.
And the ingredients label on the back?
So, does Rubschlager or United Airlines really think someone who ordered a special meal, is obviously concerned about and trying to figure out what they are eating, is really going to want to write them a letter while 39000 feet in the air travelling across the Atlantic? Even if I did write them a letter, I would still never know what I ate or could of ate, because they have a number of different lines of breads and this one isn’t labelled as to which one it is. Even on their website, they don’t list the ingredients.
There is virtually no country in the world where it’s legal to sell unlabelled food like this, it’s only because United serves this in international airspace that they can get away with it.
The Entree
So besides excessively processed breads, jams and canned fruit, what comes in a specially ordered meal on United?
I ordered an Asian vegetarian meal, and on my outbound flight the main entree was a serving of cooked white rice and a serving of peas next to it. No sauce, no spices, absolutely nothing besides rice and peas. It also had a totally inedible salad, with equally totally inedible dressing and a half canned peach.
The return flight was a little better. In this case there was a very small serving of Saag Paneer, with a few pieces of cheese as well as a small serving of vegetable curry. It also came with a serving of yoghurt, It was not terribly exciting, but not that bad. What was funny however was, a few hours later when the snack was served, they decided at that point I couldn’t eat dairy products. Since the regular snack came with butter and a serving of yoghurt, instead they served me something different with margarine and apple sauce.
Message to United
Your meal service is a disaster.
In an age where people increasing expect to eat freshly prepared food, and the dangers of eating HFCS are becoming more well known, you are serving processed crap full of HFCS.
Even on your domestic flights, where you offer meal boxes for sale, you only offer processed foods full of chemicals. What you offer is also not very suitable for vegetarians.
How about charging us $5 more when we book our flights, and invest this in improving the meal service?
Strawberry Dissapointment
The first ears of Strawberry popcorn in my garden are drying out. They look really exciting! The ears are small, but they are suppose to be. They have a nice rich red color.
The kernels are also small, even though this close-up makes them look big. The parts that were in the cob are white, and the outside parts are the red color. Getting them off the cob was quite fiddly and tedious work. The reason may be because they were still a little bit moist. Even though the seeds were hard enough not to be damaged as they were removed, they were still a little stuck.
I put about 50g into my hot air popper. They whirled around, made lots of noise — smelled fantastic! The smell was like hot buttered sweet corn!
But this is what came out! You can see they only popped a little bit, if at all. The next time I try, I will let them dry out a little more, but I wonder if that was really the problem.
Anyone have any suggestions?
The taste by the way, even half popped, was fantastic. No real need for extra butter or salt, the taste was rich enough all by itself.
Gold of Bacau
This bean I’m growing this year came from Søren, called Gold of Bacău. Søren gave me the seeds two years ago, but last year I only grew it in order to save more seeds. This year I’m growing it to eat, and the glut has begun! I have 6 poles of this bean, and it’s more than the 2 of us can eat especially considering we’re growing other beans too. It was pretty much my earliest pole bean, of the roughly 20 varieties I have this year. Most of the others I’m growing for seeds or as a trial.
It’s a Romanian bean. It has a very nice taste. I’m not a big fan of wax beans, and the taste of this is really something different. The texture is very soft, but still crisp and not mushy. Mostly the beans are yellow, but as you can see in the picture sometimes they are a little streaked with green, probably because I picked them a little early. They mature from green to yellow.
This bean will become a regular feature of my garden, at least for now. I will certainly want to grow it again. Does anyone know of other similar beans? It might be nice to compare and contrast them.
Update: Someone asked me what the seeds look like. Here’s a picture:
Late Blight in Amsterdam
After heavy rains, Late Blight appeared in my garden yesterday. My tomatoes were an immediate and near total loss, but I’m getting used to that and didn’t plant many this year. My potatoes are still untouched, but I’m sure they too will be infected within a matter of days.
Anyone else have new outbreaks of blight?
More Info on the Start Garden Party in London
I posted about this before. While I don’t know yet if I can attend, I think this is an event well suited to the kind of people who read this blog. The following is from a News Release they emailed me:
For Immediate Release
7 August 2010‘A Garden Party to Make a Difference’ – the ultimate garden party for the eco-conscious will open at The Prince of Wales private gardens in Clarence House and the gardens of neighbours Lancaster House and Marlborough House on 8 September 2010 and will run until 19 September. This unique garden party is an imaginative part of The Prince of Wales’ ‘Start’ initiative launched in February. The aim of the twelve day event is a fun day out for people of all ages but also to engage them via the exhibits that will illustrate that small steps are being taken by those interested in building a more sustainable future and what a difference they can make.
In addition to the garden focused exhibits in the grounds of these private gardens opened exclusively for this event, A Garden Party to Make a Difference will also feature appearances, debates, comedy and advice from the likes of Jools Holland, Sir David Frost, Alan Tichmarsh and Anthony Worral Thompson over the twelve days.
The Future Cities Garden – Innovative Edible Gardening
Renowned organic farmer, gardener, writer and broadcaster Tom Petherick has formed an association with garden and landscape design team Lulu Urquhart and Adam Hunt and the first joint project will be their ‘Future Cities Garden’ installation on the South facade of St James’s Palace – a project conceived for this special garden party.
Petherick, Urquhart and Hunt aim to combine their expertise and experience to create a future orientated landscape design practice. A consultancy with a point of difference that will champion sustainable, spiritually intact gardens and working landscapes with integrity.
The team believe that the ‘Garden Party to Make a Difference’ is the perfect launch pad for their new association. “We couldn’t have wished for a better opening opportunity to showcase our skills. The Prince has a passion for the environment and all things sustainable and this is totally in line with our ethos. When we were approached to come up with a display for the South Facade of St James’s Palace it was a unanimous yes”
Tom, Lulu and Adam are keen that their display will convey to visitors that gardening in small spaces is both possible, desirable and with a little effort can herald spectacular results that combine invention, inspiration, amusement and accessibility. The intention is also to show that both quantity and quality can be realized from small areas. Visitors will not fail to be inspired by such a simple and clearly executed ‘ABC of how to grow edible plants’ and how to achieve a lot from a little effort.
All four seasons will be represented and demonstrate what can be grown in each quarter of the year. Productive gardening happens all year round and is not confined to spring and summer. The idea is to show a rhythmical display following the seasons. Novice gardeners will learn how to convert existing spaces on to a more sustainable footing.
A fifth area will combine demonstrations of compost and tools and show how to convert space and containers into growing areas. The display will be overflowing with edible fruits, plants, traditional vegetables and edible & medicinal flowers and will show how everyday items that are cheap or recycled can be used to create innovative and funky growing spaces, both vertically and horizontally.
The overall aim of the team is to provide an attraction that encapsulates the show philosophy of getting people in cities growing plants, growing food, loving plants and being more sustainably aware.
Tickets, priced £15 for adults and £7.50 for children are on sale now. Tickets are timed for purposes of entrance only. Full details are available on the Garden Party website www.startgardenparty.co.uk <http://www.startgardenparty.co.uk/>
