If an airplane crash doesn’t kill you, the food just might.
What do you think the chances are of dying in a plane crash are? Pretty low in fact, something like .89 of one percent in a 100 000. The odds of getting sick eating airplane food? We’ll let you read on as we get sick together…
Gothamist: A recent analysis of FDA inspection records found that in-flight food often encounters roaches, flies, mice and unsanitary conditions on the way from the kitchen to your folding table (often times the employees handling it don’t even have a place to wash their hands!). And guess what… LaGuardia, JFK and Newark were all cited for violations.
Isn’t it reassuring knowing that eating the head of a dead roach or the backside of a roach might be the thing that unnerves you on a flight as opposed to the flight itself? As for the employees not having anywhere to wash their hands I’ve always been fond of strangers carcasses floating in my in flight peanut bag. Assuming they still serve peanut bags anymore…
One food prep facility, LSG Sky Chef at LaGuardia, told WCBS they make 405 million meals a year and “have comprehensive and multilayered quality control standards in place to ensure our customers receive safe, healthy and high quality food.” However, the FDA records do show violations all over the map—at another company, Gate Gourmet, they found food was kept at unsafe temperatures, equipment wasn’t cleaned, and there was black residue in the kitchen and on the ice machine.
Black residue? Now shouldn’t they be keeping that quiet? After all soon everyone will want to eat their chicken cordon bleu with a patina of black residue, and that wouldn’t be fair to the rest of us who want to share these yummies to ourselves.
Some slight comfort, New York doesn’t seem to be the worst of the worst as far as these conditions go. Six months ago one FDA inspector found live roaches and dead roach carcasses in an LSG Sky Chef facility in Denver. How many? “Too numerous to count.”
Well that’s a shame, because you know how it is with us New Yorker frequent fliers, it wont be long before we start screaming for our plate of live and dead roaches.
Wouldn’t it be nicer just to get air sick because there’s turbulence in the sky as opposed to a flotilla of roaches and vermin in your stomach…?
