Airport food is worse than you think. It’s enough to make you sick. With all the new airport security rules, we’ll be spending more time at airports, which means we’ll be eating more airport food.
But unless airport food vendors clean up their act, there will be more passengers locking themselves in airplane bathrooms, like the Nigerian businessman en route to Detroit.
USA TODAY reviewed inspection records for nearly 800 restaurants and food vendors at 10 U.S. airports in 2009, and found a long list of violations.
These included food stored at dangerously warm temperatures which would allow bacteria and pathogens to grow.
It’s not just at the ‘grab and go’ sandwich kiosks. USA Today also found serious violations at airport restaurants with table service.
The survey also showed employee kitchens with no soap for food-workers to wash their hands, and workers who use the same rubber gloves to work with raw meat and then bread.
And let’s not even discuss the rodents and other gremlins in the report.
I’m both a road warrior who flies at least a dozen trips a year, and I have always avoided airport food because I find it over-priced, greasy and tasteless.
Now, I’ll avoid it to avoid getting food poisoning. Now, I have extra reason to bring a sandwich and some fruit from home, or from a sandwich shop near home that I know and trust.
See the entire list of food-related illnesses you can get from poorly prepared or stored food on the US Center for Disease Control website.
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