A flight attendant has urged travellers to avoid certain refreshments while flying due to the risk they could pose to your health.
Former flight attendant Alex Quigley warned that there are high risk food and drink items that could increase your chance of developing food poisoning on a flight.
While you may be tempted to request a coffee or tea to help combat jet lag, Mr Quigley said you may want to think twice.
He explained that the water used to make hot drinks mid-flight airlines is stored in tanks that can sit stagnant for long periods and which are not cleaned regularly.
‘There’s no telling how often or when the tank has been cleaned last,’ Mr Quigley told Delish.
‘This is a beast for bacteria,’ he said.
‘I can be honest and say I never knew or saw anyone empty and refill or wash them out in between trips.’
He also said passengers should carefully consider what food they order for their flight.
Mr Quigley said while the meat option may be tempting, this carries the highest risk of food poisoning.
Former flight attendant Alex Quigley warns hot drinks are high risk refreshment while flying
‘You’re putting the trust of storing any meat in the flight attendant’s hands, and as we all know, delays happen, and mechanical issues happen,’ he said.
‘There’s a possibility the cooked meals aren’t actually being stored appropriately or have exceeded the storing time allotted for the meal.’
There are also foods he suggested avoiding to protect other passengers’ health and comfort.
Gas-inducing foods like dairy, beans, fatty foods, green vegetables, and sodas can lead to poor air quality in the cabin, he suggests.
Mr Quigley said: ‘Air in the airplane is circulated, it’s never fresh. That means if someone passes gas, you’re breathing that in over and over again, so this is more so for common decency.’
Alcohol was another refreshment Mr Quigley said could cause problems on board.
While overindulgence is a natural hazard of drinking he explained that the combination of high altitude and alcohol can make you feel more drunk than if you were on the ground.
‘When pressure is decreased in the airplane, the body can’t absorb oxygen as well,’ said Mr Quigley, ‘so you are doing yourself a favour by not drinking on the flight.’
A pre-flight tipple to celebrate the start of a holiday or to calm the fears of a nervous flyer is a common pre-boarding ritual for many travellers but it could leave you at increased risk of a variety of flight-related maladies
The warning follows a number of reports over the last six months of poor food hygiene on flights.
In September, an Air India passenger flying from Delhi to New York posted on social media that she had discovered a dead cockroach in her omelette.
Later that month, a flight had to return to its departure airport after a mouse scampered out of a meal on a Scandinavian Airlines flight from Norway to Spain and scurried off.
Then, in October last year, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) shut down Delta’s Detroit catering facility after a routine inspection of the kitchens and found a ‘food safety issue’ where the flight meals were being prepared.
‘Airline passengers should be aware of food safety issues in the in-flight catering industry,’ Darin Detwiler, a food safety adviser expert at Northeastern University in Boston, told the Washington Post.
‘The confined nature of airplane travel makes foodborne illness outbreaks especially challenging to manage.’
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