Unfortunately, airline food isn't as good as it looks.

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—It's no longer difficult to find healthy food at (most) airports nowadays. According to the latest Airport Food Review, published by the nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (a vegetarian-oriented medical society), 79 percent of restaurants at the nation's busiest airports now offer at least one low-fat, high-fiber, cholesterol-free vegetarian entrée. It seems that the combination of airlines charging for food onboard the aircraft, along with the public's increasing demand for something other than hot dogs and onion rings between flights, has led to a slimming down of airport food courts.

Sadly, another survey, conducted by Charles Stuart Platkin, PhD, MPH and founder of the website DietDetective.com, found that the airlines themselves aren't doing anywhere near as well in terms of making healthy food choices available for passengers. Those free tiny packets of peanuts may not be enough to boost your BMI, he says. But the food for sale in the air, such as 500-calorie salads and 800-calorie stacks of chips, are a different story. Which means frequent fliers may be gaining pounds along with their miles.

THE DETAILS: Platkin says he sends surveys to all the major U.S. airlines and asks for feedback about the nutritional content of the food that's served for free or sold during flights. In this year's survey, the findings of which he published in November on his website, he found that Continental ranked best for serving and selling low-calorie snacks and meals among the seven airlines that responded. Continental was followed in the rankings by American Airlines, United, JetBlue, Delta/Northwest, US Airways, and Southwest. In some cases, these airlines scored low points for offering snacks that should be split between two (or even three or four) people, like Delta's 840-calorie Fruit and Nut Trail Mix. The Nutrition Info panel says that each bag contains six servings, but, says Platkin, "we all tend to eat what's in front of us."

Adding to the problem, he says, is the fact that the airlines make it so difficult to find out the calorie content, particularly of the foods served as meals and in those snack boxes, since nutrition information isn't listed on the individual items. Platkin laughed at one package that instructed the eater to call or write the company for nutritional information, which isn't going to help you make that split-second decision as the flight attendant goes sailing past you. And you can't always assume that "healthy" equals "low-cal." For instance, United's seemingly healthy chicken salad box, with chicken salad, multigrain crackers, dried almonds, trail mix, and cream cheese spread, serves up 825 calories.

"Airline travelers are a captive audience," Platkin says. "It's not like you can go down the street while you're up in the air and buy something different from another airline."