VGML

I have a confession to make. Okay, no, I have two confessions to make.

1. I have been on 22 flights in the last two months. Yep, I have a carbon footprint so big that I could stamp out the sun. (Hey, what do I care? I don't have kids!)

2. I love airline food. Honestly. I love airline food in the same way that I loved TV dinners when I was a kid. Do you remember TV dinners? The kind that came in a foil tray, that got cooked in the real oven? Sure, they were always disgusting, but there was something so exciting about peeling back the foil to reveal what secrets lie beneath. What will it be? Will it be cooked all the way through or frozen in the middle? What is the dessert? Can I really eat Salisbury steak without puking? It was the element of surprise, combined with the challenge of eating something so disgusting, topped off with a warm dessert, all in a neat compact tray. I get the same thrill every time I fly.

Well, not every time. If you've been on a domestic US flight lately, you know that they don't give you food anymore. But on international flights (which are sometimes shorter than domestic ones) and in the rest of the world, they still give you food. Hey, at least it gives you something to pass the time.

Now despite the fact that I've been eating meat for over a year now, this was really the first big trip where I was out of the closet as a carnivore. Oh, sure, I nibbled a few bits of chicken last year in Thailand (and suffered food poinsoning from it) but until now, I've stuck to the veggie meal.

Let me tell you, getting rid of the veggie meal has made traveling a dream. For those of you who have never suffered through an airline veggie meal, let me share my pain of flights past.

It goes like this:
You book a flight, and at some point, on the phone or online, you opt for a special meal. The airline will present you with a dizzying array of special meals. Lacto-ovo vegetarian, vegan, low fat, low sodium, kosher, bland, halal ...

You choose lacto-ovo. That sounds safe.

As soon as you reach 30,000 feet, a flight attendant will come up and confirm that you have ordered a special meal. You feel special.

A few minutes later, she will return and plop your meal in front of you. Of course, meal service has not begun for the rest of the cabin, so you are getting jealous stares from all the other passengers. You have no drink.

Your meal is covered in foil and is labeld VGML. It has your name on it. Awww. You peel back the foil to reveal a veg mess. It's usually something like eggplant with mung beans and green beans and a little bit of tomato sauce over rice. It's the sort of thing I would expect to be served by those Food Not Bombs kids. Off to the side, is a half-frozen whole wheat roll with corn-oil margarine. A rotting salad with fat-free Italian dressing, with the texture of phlegm. A graham cracker. And a little dish of underipe melon with grapes.

Ummm, okay. Well, the veg mess is warm at least and the plane is freezing, so you eat.

Right around then, food service begins for everyone else. "Chicken or veggie lasagne?" they're asking. Veggie lasagne!!! Hey, wait. I could have eaten that! Why can't I have the veggie lasagne??? (Don't bother asking, they will tell you they don't have enough to go around. After all, you ordered the veggie meal.)

Soon your seatmates will have their meal. You stare (payback). They have veggie lasagne. And the same wilted salad, only they have full-fat ranch dressing! And instead of a graham cracker, they have real crackers, with a packet of real cheese. And instead of fruit, they have carrot cake. And a normal roll, with real butter. What gives? Didn't you order the lacto-ovo veg meal? Why couldn't you have these decadent delights??

My theory is that that lacto-ovo meal, the vegan meal, the bland meal, the low fat meal and the low sodium meal are ALL THE SAME THING. They just put a different sticker on it to make you feel special. BASTARDS.

Anyway, I can now tell you that flying without the dreaded VGML is like having a weight lifted off your shoulders. You don't even really have to eat any meat. And once you leave the American-owned airlines, the food improves dramatically. (Seriously, some of the best food I had in India was on a 1-hour Jet Airways flight....more on that later.)