Packing food for airplanes

[MrMan]

My experience with long haul international flights over the Pacific is that the Asian carriers treat me well. I think so far with Delta, United, etc. tickets, they always put me on a plane with an Asian partner. I always want that because of the food.

US carriers have taken to just giving away snacks on long haul flights. I don't know how much they charge for their snack box with a tiny tunafish or chicken salad sandwich on a croissant or a bit of lunch meat wrapped in lettuce. Is it $10, $12?

The last trip I took was over 5 hours. I bought the food for our 'snack packs.' We divided up a big bag of beef jerky I got a deal on from Costco and I threw a croissant in there. then I bought cheese ritz crackers, one of those little flavored tuna fish cans with crackers, individual sized chips (Doritos, etc), a granola bar, and a small Kit-Kat. Not all my kids liked everything, but we customized a bit to give everyone what they wanted, then some of them lost track of their snacks, we shared, and we were still okay.

On the way back, the kids had bowls of instant ramen noodles. One kid said the water the airline gave him wasn't hot enough. We had a big bag of chips we passed around, and the airline gave out almonds, granola bars, and preztles. I boiled some eggs for the return trip.

Ramen noodles (cup noodles, etc) are a little risky since they depend on how hot the water is on the plane. Beef jerky is good because you are basically eating a dehydrated main course. It really feels you up. The tuna salad with crackers is about $1.50 in Walmart. No one was starving when we got off the plane.

What can be a real pain is the return international flights from Asia where you arrive at lunch time.... for you... in the middle of the night for them, and they offer you nothing all night long except water if you want it and maybe a bit of coffee before you land. It's good to always have a little food in your bag that you only get into in these types of situations. If I have time, I try to grab something to go to eat on the plane. Having too many bags to handle and rushing to get on the plane can prevent this, so it is good to pack snacks.

What do you guys pack to make sure you have food when you need it on your trips? The food items I mentioned (e.g. jerky and tuna salad packs) aren't available in every country. What pre-packaged foods do you bring from the countries you visit on return flights for when you get into the US and start traveling around domestic with the suboptimal-to-nonexistent food service?