Airplane Snacks: Portable travel food ideas that won't stink up the plane

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How is the mental load of motherhood going for you? This baby stuff is a lot, right? Well my goal is to give you one less thing to worry about and that's, hmm, what am I gonna feed the baby? If you are looking for a one stop solution that literally teaches you exactly how to safely help your baby learn how to eat real food, I wanna invite you to join my signature online program called Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro. This is the most comprehensive Baby-Led Weaning program out there. I give you 20 weeks of meal plans for Baby-Led Weaning to help your baby safely eat five new foods a week, which means they're going to finish their a 100 First Foods before turning one. As one mom who recently joined the program said quote, "Our lifestyle does not give us any mental capacity to think more about what to do with this baby.

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This program caters to our needs". Inside of the program, I have my 100 First Foods content library to show you exactly how to safely prepare all of the 100 First Foods for your baby's current age and stage. My 100 First Foods daily meal plan is also included in there. It's all in one place. And a mom in our program, she said she joined because quote, "I'm too tired of trying to figure out so many different things at once. I want someone to tell me what to do to catch up my nine month so we can stop using the same familiar foods we've been feeding her". If you are a type A organized per person or like let's say you wanna be that kind of person, you wanna be more organized in what you feed your baby, then I created the Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro program for you.

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You can sign up at babyledweaning.co/program. I have one program with all the stuff you need inside of it to get this thing done and get on with your life. Again, that's babyledweaning.co/program, check it out and I hope to see you there. Whenever I do a Baby-Led Weaning, ask me anything question box on Instagram stories. I'm always surprised by how many of the questions are about seasoning foods for babies. Like do babies need to eat bland foods? Or how do I add flavor if we're not supposed to add salt to the baby's food? And the truth is babies do not need to eat bland food. I mean, seasoning your baby's food is a great way to introduce new flavors for them. And when I'm cooking foods for babies, I love the salt-free seasonings from the Spice House.

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So the Spice House has been around since 1957. They sell really high quality spices and herbs. They have blends and extracts and their customer base ranges from like Michelin star chefs to brand new moms. Spice House has a salt free spices deluxe gift set. I love this. I like put it in my baby shower package of like starting solid food gifts for friends. Go to for seasoning foods that your babies can eat and you can get 10% off everything at thespicehouse.com with the affiliate discount code BLWT. If you have like literally no idea how to season foods, check out their essential spices collection. I am admittedly a terrible gift giver, but like my jam is going on the Spice House website clicking on their gift packs.

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It is like such a good housewarming gift. It's such a good gift for new moms 'cause like you know, your spice cabinet, no offense, it's probably kind of ugly. When you get all the New Spice House stuff in you're gonna be like, "Oh my gosh, now I actually wanna season food for me and the baby again". That discount code is BLWT at thespicehouse.com and do not be shy about seasoning your baby's food. And while the FAA does not yet, as of yet, require epinephrine autoinjectors to be carried by all of the airlines, there is epinephrine on the airplane, but it's like in a vial form, which is quite hard to distribute as a general common courtesy to your fellow passengers.

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You know, bringing nut and peanut containing products on an airplane is kind of frowned upon at this point, but there are a lot of other non-allergenic foods that your baby can safely eat on the plane if you have a travel day coming up. I'm Katie Ferraro, Registered dietitian, college nutrition professor and mom of seven specializing in infant feeding and Baby-Led Weaning. But it wasn't all that long ago that I struggled tremendously while trying to spoon feed my oldest baby. Fast forward to my next pregnancies, quadruplets and then twins. And we decided to go all in on Baby-Led Weaning and those babies ate over 100 real wholesome foods before turning one. No force feeding by spoon. No short order cooking. No mealtime battles with picky eaters.

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Baby-led Weaning was such a transformational experience that I shifted the entire emphasis of my nutrition career. And I focus exclusively now on helping parents, caregivers and healthcare providers give their babies a safe start to solid foods using Baby-Led weaning. I created the Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro podcast to give you simple, actionable, proven strategies that you can use right now to master Baby-Led weaning. If you're a new parent or a seasoned veteran looking to learn more about this evidence-based approach to raising independent eaters and starting solid food safely, you are in the right place. Let's get started.

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And Happy Feeding. If you are brave enough to board a flight with your baby, you might be wondering, well what sort of snacks should I have on hand? There was a mom in my program recently who was telling us about traveling on a 22-hour flight to India. She was with her son who had started solid foods. They were doing Baby-Led weaning and she was gonna be doing a rice feeding ceremony with her family. And she's like, all of that sounds wonderful, but like the thought of trying to get there, like what sort of food can I take with me? So I put together a little list for her, which I'm gonna share the expanded version of it with you guys today. And by the way, she did live to tell the story of flying on the plane, but she said it was like the longest 22 hours of her life.

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And obviously babies on a normal day do not need snacks, right? Like we know that babies can get most of their nutrition from the infant milk that you're continuing to feed them as they're learning how to eat plus the meals that they're eating, okay. The baby food industrial complex wants us to think that our babies need snacks. But when you get on that plane, it's oftentimes the mom and the dad who need the snacks because even the best laid plans, if they go awry. I mean I know I'm type A to the max. The first time I got on a plane with my daughter, I was like, I gotta go to Target. I was like wandering around the baby food aisle being like, what food should I bring with me? 'Cause I normally control what we're eating and what she's having, but like if I don't have control over where our next meal's coming from, if our plans get changed when we're traveling, I think some snacks are going to be helpful.

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And I totally agree with you that on, I agree with me. I guess my my new mom self that snacks are totally fine on travel day if you need them to get through the day. Okay, so in today's episode, I wanna look at some airplane snack ideas if you are hitting the friendly skies with your baby-led weaning baby anytime soon. Now, I like to start out these mini training episodes with a Baby-Led weaning tip of the day. And today's tip is to steer clear of nut containing snacks when you are getting on a plane. Now, every airline has different rules and there's no hard and fast ban on nut foods on airplanes, but obviously you've been on airplanes where they announce overhead. Someone here has a severe nut or peanut allergy.

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Those are two separate allergies by the way, and we ask you not to consume those foods. They don't serve peanuts on airplanes anymore. There's, you know, instances of, I know there's just recently an article I read in the newspaper that was about the FAA is considering they're fielding comments right now about possibly making epinephrine autoinjectors mandatory on US airlines. Because right now you have to carry epinephrine in doses high enough to treat an adult for a heart attack, but it's like in a vial as opposed to a really easy to administer autoinjector. And so some airlines are just making the call right now, but obviously these medications, EpiPens are hard to come by and they expire and they're expensive. However, epinephrine saves lives.

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Now your baby, are they gonna have an anaphylactic reaction and die on an airplane from eating a food that they're allergic to? That's very unlikely, right? We've covered extensively on this podcast how death from anaphylaxis in infancy from food allergies is almost all but unheard of. But there's a lot of conversation around this in the adult space right now. So also outta like courtesy to your other passengers, especially because cross-contamination can cause allergic reaction in those who do have certain food allergies taking potentially allergenic foods on the plane. Not a great idea and especially this is a sensitive area for people with nut and peanut allergy. So one of the very few packaged snacks that I actually like for babies is a peanut puff called Puff Works.

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I recommend them, a very no stress, low mess way to introduce your baby safely to peanuts if you don't want deal with thinning out peanut butter. They also make a tree nut snack, so an almond butter snack for babies. But I don't recommend taking those on the airplane again because of the potential for cross-contamination for other people that may have those allergies. So that's the one snack I like. But I don't recommend taking it on a plane. The other snacks that I like for airplane, not for airplanes, for just snacks in general, like if you need to have an easy convenience food that your baby can eat right now. I love hard boiled eggs. I love sardines. I mean babies eat the heck outta those foods, but they definitely stink when you get on an airplane, right?

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Like you know the person who's getting on the plane with hard boiled eggs from Starbucks and you're like really on an airplane. So while I love hard boiled eggs and sardines, probably to keep the other people around you happy, you should not buy those. The thing that you should buy that makes the people happy on the airplane though. I know my sister-in-law used to do this when she traveled a lot more with her kids. She had three kids and she would travel solo with them to go visit her mom. And she would always at target buy a couple bags of candy for the flight attendant to say thank you for putting up with our kids. Whether or not you think that's necessary, that's your call. But it was always a nice touch. I watched her do it one time when we all traveled with all of the babies together. I had my seven kids, her three, my sister had six. There was like so many kids on this plane.

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The candy was very, very appreciated by the flight attendant. So not good for your baby though, 'cause obviously what are we looking for when we're looking for snacks for a baby? It's a perfect segue into the next section, which is the nutrition information. So my suggestion to you is if you are sourcing snacks, and I'm not gonna give you any brand name recommendations on this podcast 'cause I want you to go and find out the ones that work for you because you don't need a ton of these. We actually put our intern on this task in preparation for this episode and she's like, "Oh my gosh, it's kind of hard to find baby specific snacks". I was like, yeah, just like with regular food, babies can eat some of the same foods that adults can eat. Should they be having, you know, Flaming Hot Cheetos for a snack on the airplane?

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Probably not. What you want to look for when you're looking at packaged snacks for your baby, look for zero grams of added sugar. Okay. That's for me as a dietitian. Like that's just a habit I'm gonna get into as a mom as well that I don't want any added sugar. Okay. Babies don't need any added sugar. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends against added sugar for babies up until age two. And even after that, we're trying to minimize that if at all possible. Don't worry, your child will have plenty of access to sugar in lots of other places as they get older. But if you are looking for snacks, go for zero gram of sugar.

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The second thing that I always look for is less than 100 milligrams of sodium per serving, Okay. So zero grams of added sugar and less than 100 milligrams of sodium. Now your packaged snack food, you know, depends what kind of snacks you guys like. It's kind of a fun exercise to look at what you're eating right now. If there's less than a 100 milligrams of sodium and it's something that you don't think would pose a choking hazard to your baby, then it's something that your baby can probably have with you. One snack food that I routinely ate and liked that I was surprised when my babies got a little bit older was totally fine for them to have were the Pea Snaps. So they look kind of like about the size of your adult pinky finger, good size for Baby-Led weaning.

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They dissolve quite easily on your baby's tongue. They're a little bit on the crispy side, so I don't do them for earlier eaters. But once your baby's handling some crispier crunchier foods, there's a couple of the brands of the Pea Snaps that had no added sugar. Some of them had like 15 to 20 milligrams of sodium, which is very low. But again, my general rule of thumb, is that I'm looking for less than a 100 milligrams of sodium in a serving of a food that I'm gonna offer to my baby. Knowing that most of the foods that I offer are not coming out of a package. So a little bit of sodium here and there is not the end of the world, but again, you have to make the call about whether or not your baby can handle that particular texture. What about pouches? Sometimes people are surprised to hear why? Why would you even be mentioning pouches if you teach about Baby-Led weaning?

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Well, I have nothing against pure purees are a very important texture for your baby to master. They're just not the only texture your baby can eat. And we've covered pouches on the podcast and I'll link to an episode where I interviewed a speech language pathologist and we talk about some of the limitations of pouches. But from a developmental standpoint, there is no feeding milestone that requires your baby to learn how to suck out of a plastic nozzle, okay? And when you're doing pouches, I think they're perfectly fine, especially for travel days. Like if there is sometimes food and a convenience food and you need it to get through that trip. You absolutely do it. Now, the way we recommend doing pouches for Baby-Led weaning is not exactly conducive with airplane travel because it involves taking a suction bowl, pouring the pouch into the bowl, putting the puree onto the preloaded spoon, and then putting that in your baby's hand.

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Like I, I just don't see you doing that in the little tiny confined space where you're sitting on an airplane. Plus, it would make a huge mess. So, I, personally, am more interested in finger foods that aren't so messy, that are not offensive with regards to their smell, and that are safe for my baby to eat. So again, pouches totally fine for travel, for convenience. Just so you know, pouches and other pureed baby foods, they're not subject to the liquid rules. Like you're not supposed to bring, you know, more than three ounces of a liquid food on. If it is a food for your baby, you are allowed to bring it onto the airplane. But again, from a developmental standpoint, we like to see the baby eating the puree by themselves off of a preloaded spoon and just not awesome on an airplane. What will work?

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However, I love fresh fruit, okay? One of the best travel snacks ever invented the banana right comes in its own hermetically sealed external container called the banana peel. We never offer babies the banana peel. It is a huge choking hazard, but if you take the banana outta the peel. Cut it into strips about the size of your adult pinky finger. Put it on a suction matter bowl. Let your baby pick it up or you know, hold it in your hand and let them take it that way. That would work perfectly fine. I've also had travel trips where you know, you get like a fresh fruit cup, but sometimes, especially if it's like the kind of harder melon, if it's like crunchy and crispy and hard, your your baby to swallow, we can't offer it. But remember one time I love hot tea and they always have hot water on an airplane. Just pour a little bit of hot water on there to soften it. Obviously, you have to cool it. Okay.

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So set it to the side if you're down, like that's kind of a little bit labor intense, but fresh fruit is an option for your baby on the plane. But we just want it to be soft so we don't do like dried fruits or sticky fruits or any fruits that are hard, crunchy or crispy. Another really easy snack to take on a plane for a baby is cooked pasta. It could be cold cooked pasta. I usually prefer the longer pieces of pasta that are shaped about the size of your adult pinky finger. Things like rigatoni or penne or cavatappi. Cook them past the al dente stage. So al dente is to the tooth, but for baby-led weaning we go a little bit past that so it's nice and soft. And then rinse your pasta under running water. And then I also will toss it either in some oil or some butter.

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If you're doing butter, keep in mind that that is a food that contains cow's milk protein, which is an allergenic food, and pasta contains wheat. Another potentially allergenic food. Again, these foods are fine, perfectly acceptable for your baby to eat, but you'd want them to have had the wheat products and or the milk products a number of times on their own without reaction. Like you don't wanna try it for one of the first times on an airplane and have them have an allergic reaction. So If, you're good with wheat and your baby good with pasta. Do the pasta that's cold. That's cooked and you tossed it in a little bit of oil or butter to keep it from sticking together. Put that in whatever food container you use and your baby can pick it up and feed it to themselves. Another one that I love are cooked baby carrots. Very super easy to boil a baby carrot to the point where it passes the squished test.

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What that means is if you squeeze the carrot between your finger and your thumb, there should be a little bit of give. That's an indicator that it's safe for your baby to eat with their gums. Again, I don't do any raw carrots for babies. But prepping some cooked pasta, prepping some cooked carrots, there's two super easy snacks that you can take with you that are not packaged and processed, that don't have added sugar and sodium and that are pretty affordable as well. Sometimes parents ask about dried cereals. I have no problem with dried cereals. I love certain dried cereals for older kids, but it is really hard to find a dried cereal that has a minimal amount of sodium and no added sugar, right? If it's a kid's cereal, of course it's sugar sweetened, but you would be surprised how much sodium ends up being in dried cereal, particularly if it's sugar free.

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I feel like they compensate by putting extra salt in it. So you're pretty hard pressed to find a cereal that would work as far as being lower in sodium and no added sugar, but something you know, people ask about just plain old fashioned like oat Os. Okay, as long as we get the type that don't have added sugar. If your older baby who has been eating solid foods for a while now and also has their pincer grasp. If you're down for that, to keep them occupied, I mean that's probably one of like the most timeless baby snacks out there. We just don't do those little pieces, those little O's for cereal, for early eaters of course, because A, they don't have their pincer grasp to pick it up and feed it to themselves. But B, a very small piece of food like that could be the exact size to potentially occlude their airway. Another good option is pancakes strips.

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So, if you're making any variety of pancakes. I know we have 20 different starchy foods on my a 100 First Foods list. Parents are always making different pancakes or fritters out of them. If you're following my 100 First Foods daily meal plan or you're inside our program with lots of recipes for Baby-Led Weaning pancakes. A lot of those will work very well on the airplane as well. I usually use my pizza cutter to cut them up into little strips, put them in the food storage bag. I like those silicone food storage bags over plastic ones. Pop them in my diaper bag and you have some easy finger foods for your baby to pick up and feed to themselves.

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One other tip for traveling on the airplane is, and my husband actually works in aviation and he works for a company that does a lot of the third party stuff, which also includes cleaning the planes. I have some inside knowledge to help unclean the plane truly is. And I always bring my own suction mat or bowl for the airplane for my babies. Now another thing that I love product that EZPZ has come out with the tiny placemat. It's this silicone suction placemat that's about the size of the tray on your standard commercial airliner. And you roll it out on top and you can put the foods right on there. You know it's clean. It rolls up nice and easy and pretty small to go into your diaper bag, but that way you don't have to put the food on the questionable tray, which I feel like even if you wipe everything down, I'm still like, ugh.

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I need another barrier between the germs and the food my baby's about to put in their mouth. So that's called the EZPZ Tiny Placement and my affiliate discount code KATIE10 works for 10% off at ezpzfun.com. I hope you guys found a few tips if you're gonna hit that plane ride. This mom that was in my group that just got back from a 22-hour flight with her baby from India, she said there weren't enough snacks in the world to keep her baby occupied. So If, you're doing a really long haul and you've got some other ideas. I would love to hear them. And you know a lot of times your baby is gonna be, if you're doing a long flight and you're actually getting food on the airplane, do exactly what you would do at a restaurant. Look around at the food that's on your plate 'cause they don't have special meals for babies that are not pureed. And see is there something here that my baby can also eat.

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Having modified versions of the same foods that you eat. You know, I always encourage parents to think of travel as an opportunity for your baby to try a new food. So maybe there's some new foods out there on the plane that they might be interested in trying. But I'm with you on packing some snacks for the airplane day. And if you want to get some more ideas of recipes and foods you can feed your baby. They're all inside of my program, Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro. That's at babyledweaning.co. Happy travels to those of you hitting the road, and I will put some of the links to the products, as well as, the ideas that I talked about today on the Shownotes page for this episode, which you can find at BLWpodcast.com/407.

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Like a lot of moms out there, I will totally admit I am quite Type A. I am a total task master and one of my weekly work tasks is to review the feedback forms that are new students in my program, which is called Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro, that they leave for us. So basically this form asks a lot of questions about you and your baby and your baby's feeding and medical history, any concerns that you might have or fears about starting solid foods. And all of this data helps me when I'm answering parent questions inside of our weekly live office hours so that I can then tailor my response to your particular baby and situation, right? Because it's not a one size fits all approach when it comes to what your baby's eating, right?

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'cause maybe your baby has an egg allergy. Or another mom in the program, she might really be struggling with how to make meat safe 'cause she doesn't like to cook. So this week on the form, there's a new mom named Janine and she wrote, and this is her quote, "I researched a lot on the internet and I have a lot of books. I saw a lot of other Baby-Led Weaning programs. But in the end, this is the one that I realized is what I'm really looking for as a new mom. I love that Katie's program has a community and that there are videos for everything you need to know and how to make the foods. And what I love the most is that there's already a meal plan ready". And this just like stopped my heart because this is exactly why I created the Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro program. I wanted to literally put everything that you need to know about starting solid food safely in one place with a super easy to follow 20 full weeks meal plan.

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Okay, there's 20 weeks 'cause it's five foods a week. I want your baby to get to those a 100 new foods before they turn one. 'cause I also know you have a lot going on as a new mom and hunting and pecking all over the internet to try to figure out what am I gonna feed this baby. That is not the solution. So If, you want to check out the Baby-Led Weaning with Katie Ferraro program. I would be honored to work with you and your baby. You can head to babyledweaning.co to get started and hopefully I'll be reading your feedback soon too.