I've recently got back from a couple of months of travelling overseas.
Before I left, I asked the list for advice on airline food, and whether it
would be best to order special meals of some kind.

To recap, the responses I got were as follows -

Several people suggested that I should take my own food, giving the
impression that airline food is practically inedible.

Others suggested ordering low-fat, low cholesterol, or vegetarian meals.

While I appreciated the advice, I didn't feel totally comfortable with any
of these options, so I decided to ask my travel agent what was available in
the way of special meals. She read out quite a long list of dietary
regimes, and I decided that gluten-free meals would probably be the best
choice for me. The description she gave me was: 'The Gluten-free diet
offered excludes things such as wheat, barley, oats, bread, cake, soup and
gravies but includes meat, chicken, fish, vegetables, fruit.' (Yeah, I
know, they forgot to mention rye, but I imagine that's excluded too.)

I thought I'd give you a quick run-down of my experiences, in case it's
useful to anyone else. The booking was made through Qantas, and the flights
were with Qantas, British Airways and Lan Chile (10 flights in all). The
first lesson I learned was that although my itinerary had 'gluten-free'
clearly indicated against each leg of the trip, this didn't mean that the
message had actually got through to all the people who needed to know. So
on my first British Airways flight, they didn't have a GF meal available
for me and I made do with the standard fare.

I subsequently made sure to check at every available opportunity that my
request had been recorded for the remaining flights. Even then, on one leg
of a Lan Chile flight, the crew again didn't seem to know about it. So I
would strongly suggest to anyone who wants to be sure of having special
meals available on flights that you check, check and check again. Don't
just assume that it will happen because you asked for it when you booked!
(And remember that they generally need about 24 hours' notice to provide
the meals, so it's not sufficient just to mention it when you're checking
in for the flight. It's too late at that point if they didn't know beforehand.)

As far as the food went when I did get it, I was generally quite happy with
it. Obviously, the meals often included some non-paleo items such as rice,
potatoes, gluten-free bread or yoghurt, but these were generally easy
enough to avoid if desired. There were enough paleo-friendly items to make
reasonable meals.

The main dish was usually chicken (sometimes flavoured with herbs) served
with various kinds of vegetables and/or salads. One meal had omelette as
the protein portion. Chicken was the only type of meat I was served. I
imagine that it is compatible with a greater variety of diets than red meat
or fish, and so it makes things more convenient for them. But if they use
it all the time, it could get a bit monotonous if you fly a lot. Snacks and
desserts usually consisted of fresh fruit (several kinds served together in
diced or sliced form).

The standard meal generally offered a choice of two options for the main
item, but there was no choice for special meals. Still, I felt that a
reasonable effort was made to provide me with interesting and attractive
meals, and I enjoyed eating them (apart from the omelette, which was
somewhat leathery). My main gripe would be that they were very low in fat,
but then that is to be expected, I suppose.

Qantas served my meals to me at the same time as the regular meals were
served - they simply had my name and seat number on the package and so it
was a very simple process. I felt much more comfortable with this
arrangement than I did on the British Airways and Lan Chile flights, where
the special meals were served first, and sometimes I would finish eating
before the person next to me even got served.

If anyone is interested in more detailed information on what I ate, please
email me privately and I will be happy to provide it.

Regards,
Barbara