When you’re traveling by plane, the food options served onboard are limited. You can pack whole-grain salads, unsalted nuts, veggies, and cheese that sustain you with their healthy mix of fat, protein, carbohydrates, and fiber. But if you’re just happy you made it to your gate in time, you probably didn’t pack any snacks and are, thus, relegated to the in-flight menu. Robert Svoboda, a longtime Ayurvedic doctor, says that you can, in fact, still eat healthfully from the food cart. Svoboda notes that traveling by plane results in an increase of vata, one of the three Ayurvedic doshas (energies) associated with the air element, movement, and the body’s nervous system [the other doshas are pitta, associated with heat and metabolism, and kapha, associated with bodily systems of lubrication and structure]. From an Ayurvedic perspective, heightened vata results in dryness of the body, weakness of the digestion, and a discombobluation of the nervous system.
With that in mind, Svoboda recommends to keep vata in check by eating food that is hot in terms of both temperature and spicing, which allows it to be digested more easily. So a light vegetarian meal would be preferable to a turkey sandwich, which would be served cold and is also heavier because of the meat and the bread.
Svoboda says that a fruit plate also has advantages: “For most people fruit is lighter and easier to digest than meat,” he says, “and will not promote dehydration as much as meat, which is usually abundantly salted.” Because dry air is the norm on airplanes, flying promotes dehydration, and salty foods will further dehydrate your body.
Ultimately, Svoboda says that whatever is on the menu, you should follow your intuition about what foods suit you. “These choices agree with me,” he notes. “It is always best to know what agrees with you, and to try to consume that, whatever the ‘theory’ may say.”