Food and Nutrition

Ugh dietitian pet hate of mine - too much bread (especially white bread) and not enough nutritious filling in a sandwich or roll. 🥪🌯🥙

These were the sandwich options in the Qantas Business Class lounge in Melbourne back in April and I was very disappointed. The bread was cold (straight from fridge) and the texture was a little off.

But most disappointing was the amount of filling - it was basically non existant. (Swipe to see photo 2 for more on the roll) 👉.

Now I'm not anti- bread (you all know that by now). But I am all about good quality wholegrain bread with nutritious fillings, and an appropriate bread to filling ratio (gosh I sound like a nutrition nerd don't I 😄).

And these just aren't great - basically if you eat one of these you are just having white bread without much nutrition 'bang for your buck'. Tiny amount of salad, and not much lean protein (half slice of ham or couple pieces of chicken). So basically you are filling up on refined white bread.

I wanted to highlight this as in many lounges right now sandwiches like this are appearing more as they are cheap and can be served covid safe etc. But they aren't very healthy, especially if flying more now, so be careful how often you choose them.

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For all you flying over the weekend (I'm still grounded unfortunately), remember to be careful with your snack choices on board as they can be calorie (kilojoule) dense. 🍪🍩🍰🧁🍫

Now I'm not saying this cookie is a bad brand or anything, but I just wanted draw your attention to energy content of snacks. We know cutting calories isn't everything when it comes to diet and health, however it does play a role when we are talking about discretionary foods (junk foods/occasional foods whatever you want to call them).

When you know more about energy content of foods, you can make a better judgement on how much you eat of it. And how better to know how many calories is in a food, than to picture foods that we are all pretty familiar with.

So for example, this cookie that was served as a snack on @qantas (228 calories or 955kj) and it has nearly the same energy content as a McDonald's Cheeseburger which has 300 calories (1260kjs).🍔

If you already had some food in the lounge before - would you also eat say a cheeseburger as well? Well from an energy perspective that is basically what you are doing, and it is also not like the cookie is a nutrient rich food with a whole range of beneficial nutrients and phytonutrients - it is a treat food. So you aren't getting any 'nutrition bang for your buck' having it.

So next time you are on board and they are serving a snack, consider whether you really need it (or if you even like it) and whether it is giving you many great nutrients.

That's what I do - and sometimes it means I just have a bite and in many cases that's all I need 😊

#snacks #planefood #cookie #travelnutrition #qantas #inflightmeal #inflightcatering #traveldietitian #travelnutritionist #flying #snack ...