Frequent travelers know flight attendants have a tough job. They're there to assist with every need, from serving drinks and meals to calming your nerves on a bumpy ride. They're even there to save your life in an emergency. In other words, they know a thing or two about what to do and what not to do on an airplane — and that includes what you should never, ever eat or drink while flying. Here are three things flight attendants say you should avoid on your next trip.
Tap Water (Including in Coffee and Tea)
“I never drank the tap water,” Sue Fogwell, who flew for 22 years, shared with Travel + Leisure. “Coffee and tea are made with tap water, which comes from the airplane's water tanks.” Instead, Fogwell suggested, “If you want coffee, buy it in the terminal, [and] if you need a caffeine boost, ask for a Coke or Pepsi.”
Not drinking tap water on flights is a well-documented no-no. As T+L previously explained, the water tanks on planes are notoriously grimy. A 2004 EPA sample of 158 planes found that 13 percent contained coliform, and two had dangerous levels of E. coli.
Fogwell added, don’t be fooled by a water pitcher either. “Sometimes, on flights, we would run out of bottled water,” she said. “If you see a pitcher of water on the beverage cart in economy class, skip it — it's from the water tank. Ask for a can of seltzer water.”
Gas-inducing Foods
Air pressure changes as you fly — and that’s a good thing because it helps us breathe comfortably at 30,000 feet in the air. But it can also cause our bellies a little discomfort. That’s why Josephine Remo, a former crew member who flew for seven years, suggested avoiding any gas-inducing foods.
“On a plane, [the change in] air pressure can mess with your stomach. This especially applies if you travel several times a week, where you can start to feel a big difference,” said Remo. “For this reason, I always avoid eating foods that make my stomach bloated and expand even more. These foods include onion, kale, beans, red meat, lentils, gluten, and broccoli.” Beyond foods, Remo added, it may be a good idea to steer clear of carbonated drinks that can also lead to an upset stomach in the air.
Bloody Marys
We know this one is a favorite and scientifically proven to taste better in the sky. But as Fogwell said, “Due to the very high sodium content, I always avoid drinking Mr. & Mrs. T/bloody mary mix and tomato juice.”
Fogwell is indeed backed up by science. As Vital Record, Texas A&M’s health website, explained, ingesting too much salt can both cause bloating and further dehydration. “When too much sodium throws the body and the kidneys out of whack, the body becomes dehydrated. During this period, the body will pull water from your cells,” the website explained. Luckily, all you need to do is drink more water to combat this. “Drinking more water will help neutralize the sodium and rehydrate the cells throughout your body,” the website added. So, at the very least, make sure to be alternate between those delicious bloody marys and water. And maybe for the comfort of everyone on the flight, just avoid the beans this time.
Intermittent fasting led to a group of people with obesity losing 7.6 kilograms in 14 weeks when combined with them receiving advice on reducing their calorie intake, compared with 3.9 kilograms among those who only received the advice
Eating all meals between 7am and 3pm at least five days per week can drive weight loss while lifting a person’s mood and energy levels, according to a study in people who are obese.
Intermittent fasting is an increasingly popular weight-loss tool. One example is the 16:8 diet, which involves eating within an 8-hour window and fasting for the remaining 16 hours of the day.
A Chinese food blogger who sparked fury after cooking and eating an endangered great white shark in a TikTok video has been slapped with a hefty fine by Chinese authorities.
In a statement on Saturday, officials in the city of Nanchong said they had fined a woman named as Jin 125,000 yuan ($18,522) for illegally buying and eating a wild animal.
The woman—who officials said was known on social media by her username Tizi—had bought the shark for 7,700 yuan ($1,141) on Alibaba-owned shopping site Taobao, authorities said, before filming herself cooking the 2-meter-long predator in a spicy broth and eating its meat.
“It may look vicious, but its meat is truly very tender,” Tizi, who has millions of followers, said in the video, which went viral on social media platforms Douyin—the Chinese version of TikTok—and Kuaishou.
She was then filmed tearing chunks of the shark’s flesh off of its carcass with her teeth.
Officials said on Saturday that they began investigating claims made against the influencer in August, identifying the fish used in her video as a great white shark via DNA testing leftover tissues.
Two other people involved in catching and selling the shark had also been arrested, they added.
Despite the health risks, it is eaten by humans in various parts of the world, with shark fin soup considered a delicacy in traditional Chinese cuisine.
Is eating shark illegal in China?
Consumption of the meat in China has dropped massively in recent years, however, as authorities have clamped down on using the animals as a food source.
Great white sharks—the species Tizi ate in her infamous video—are classified as vulnerable to extinction by the WWF, meaning they are close to being classed as endangered.
The organization says great white sharks’ numbers are decreasing thanks to years of being hunted for their fins and teeth.
In China, great whites are an endangered species that are legally protected by the state.
Under Chinese law, the hunting, catching or killing of any protected species is banned, as is the transporting, buying and selling of them. The law also prohibits the eating of hundreds of endangered species—with those who break the rules liable to face up to 10 years in prison.
In 2020, China introduced a blanket ban on the trade and consumption of wild animals in a bid to protect public health following the outbreak of COVID-19.
It is unclear whether Tizi is facing any further legal punishment in addition to her monetary penalty.
After posting the video of herself eating the great white shark, Tizi faced a slew of backlash from social media users, who labeled her “ignorant” and an “uncultured” attention-seeker.
Many people struggled to keep warm and ate food past its use-by date in the build-up to Christmas as prices continued to soar, official data shows.
Issues regarding the costs of heating and eating, and the impact on individuals, are shown in data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Nearly one in five adults surveyed said they had eaten smaller portions and food beyond its use-by date.
Use-by labels have a date until when perishable food can be eaten safely.
The Food Standards Agency says that people should "never eat food after the use-by date, even if it looks and smells ok, as it could make you very ill".
It warns after this date, people should not eat, cook or freeze food, warning "you cannot smell the bacteria which make you ill".
Best-before guidance is different. It is for when the product should be consumed to get the best quality, taste and texture. A number of supermarkets have dropped the use of best-before labels claiming they create food waste when consumers could simply use their discretion instead.
Almost a quarter of those asked in the survey, conducted in the four weeks to 18 December, said they had occasionally, hardly ever, or never, been able to keep comfortably warm in the previous fortnight.
Rising prices
The ONS poll, based on responses from more than 4,700 people, suggests that the winter weather, energy bills and rising food prices were having a significant impact on health and wellbeing.
In total, around one in seven (15%) adults were somewhat, or very, worried their food would run out before they had money to buy more.
Over two-thirds (70%) of those who ran out of food in the previous two weeks, and could not afford to buy more, were also struggling with heating.
Some 41% of people on prepayment meters said they had struggled, at least occasionally, to keep warm.
Sarah Coles, senior personal finance analyst at investment firm Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "This bleak winter is taking a horrible toll on people's lives, and their health."
The cost of energy and the war in Ukraine have been key factors in the soaring cost of food.
Official data shows that food prices rose 16.8% in the year to December. Basics such as milk, cheese and eggs saw the largest increases.
Prices for sugar, jam, honey and chocolate, as well as soft drinks and juices, also jumped. However, price growth slowed for bread and cereals.
Overall inflation, which charts the rising cost of living, was 10.5% in the year to December - meaning a typical basket of goods and services rose in price by 10.5% in a year. The Bank of England's inflation target is 2%.
The latest data comes from a monthly survey which asks various, and changing, questions about winter pressures such as the cost of living. This means it is not necessarily possible to say whether issues, such as eating after a use-by date, has changed over time.
It also covers the issue of hospital waits, with the poll suggesting that 21% of adults reported they were waiting for a hospital appointment, test, or to start receiving medical treatment through the NHS.
The latest findings come shortly after a survey for the BBC indicated that a third of respondents who used credit to help get through Christmas and the holiday season said they were not confident about their ability to repay.
It suggested more than eight in 10 of those asked were worried about the rising cost of living, with some losing sleep over it.
But people are finding different ways to cut costs to pay their bills. A majority of respondents have been turning the heating down and lights off, or reducing their grocery shop.
Brieanna Charlebois, The Canadian Press Published Saturday, January 28, 2023 2:45PM EST
On the Arctic sea floor lie hungry predators that can eat dead polar bears.
The voracious carnivores are seastars, better known as starfish, and a new study by a national research group says they tie with polar bears as the top predators of the Arctic marine ecosystem.
Co-author Remi Amiraux, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Manitoba, said sea floor, or benthic, organisms are not commonly studied because they are often assumed to be lower on the food chain.
But the study published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that the ocean floor includes organisms across the whole range of the food chain.
Seastars within the Pterasteridae family sat at the top, with the study dubbing them “the benthic equivalent to polar bears.”
“It's a shift in our view of how the coastal Arctic marine food web works,” Amiraux said in an interview.
He said that invertebrates, or creatures without backbones, living in sediment on the Arctic sea floor did not just consist of plant-eating herbivores.
“You have a whole food web, including primary predators, herbivores and many carnivores. So it's way more complex than what we thought,” Amiraux said.
The study's authors say “megafaunal-predatory” Pterasteridae seastars thrive in this realm “because of their evolved defence mechanism associated with a diet of other predators, including marine mammal carcasses that settle onto the ocean floor.”
Amiraux said that while polar bears do not consume starfish, “the opposite is quite true.”
“Actually, when a polar bear dies, it can be eaten by carnivore seastars,” Amiraux said.
The researchers examined 1,580 samples from wildlife around Nunavut's Southampton Island in Hudson Bay to understand how the ecosystem functions and help governing bodies protect and conserve marine life in the area.
The Southampton Island region has been identified as an area of interest for Marine Protected Area designation by Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
Amiraux said food webs provide insight into ecosystem functioning.
He noted that though the study focused on an area in the Arctic, starfish are found worldwide, so it is likely that “there is the same structure or the same food web everywhere on the sea floor.”
“I don't think it's a special feature of the coastal environment,” he said. “We pretty much will be able to see that in all environments.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 28, 2023.
On the Arctic sea floor lie hungry predators that can eat dead polar bears.
The voracious carnivores are seastars, better known as starfish, and a new study by a national research group says they tie with polar bears as the top predators of the Arctic marine ecosystem.
Co-author Remi Amiraux, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Manitoba, said sea floor, or benthic, organisms are not commonly studied because they are often assumed to be lower on the food chain.
But the study published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that the ocean floor includes organisms across the whole range of the food chain.
Seastars within the Pterasteridae family sat at the top, with the study dubbing them "the benthic equivalent to polar bears."
"It’s a shift in our view of how the coastal Arctic marine food web works," Amiraux said in an interview.
He said that invertebrates, or creatures without backbones, living in sediment on the Arctic sea floor did not just consist of plant-eating herbivores.
"You have a whole food web, including primary predators, herbivores and many carnivores. So it's way more complex than what we thought," Amiraux said.
The study's authors say "megafaunal-predatory" Pterasteridae seastars thrive in this realm "because of their evolved defence mechanism associated with a diet of other predators, including marine mammal carcasses that settle onto the ocean floor."
Amiraux said that while polar bears do not consume starfish, "the opposite is quite true."
"Actually, when a polar bear dies, it can be eaten by carnivore seastars," Amiraux said.
The researchers examined 1,580 samples from wildlife around Nunavut's Southampton Island in Hudson Bay to understand how the ecosystem functions and help governing bodies protect and conserve marine life in the area.
The Southampton Island region has been identified as an area of interest for Marine Protected Area designation by Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
Amiraux said food webs provide insight into ecosystem functioning.
He noted that though the study focused on an area in the Arctic, starfish are found worldwide, so it is likely that "there is the same structure or the same food web everywhere on the sea floor."
"I don't think it's a special feature of the coastal environment," he said. "We pretty much will be able to see that in all environments."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 28, 2023.
Montrealers don't need to be reminded of how great our food scene is, but it certainly doesn't hurt to hear about it every now and again, especially when it comes to a "best of" ranking.
The user review service compiled its list by first reaching out to Yelpers for their fave dining spots. It then ranked each by the total number of submissions, ratings, reviews, and geographic representation, among other factors, Yelp said.
A total of 20 Montreal restaurants managed to secure a spot in the recent ranking with an impressive mix of cuisines. From Middle Eastern, French, and Spanish all the way to Japanese and Italian, Yelp's list is making it easier than ever to know where to eat out across the 514.
Quebec City also got a few honourable mentions with a total of seven restaurants making the list, as did Laval with one entry — Pasta da Panza.
Here are the Montreal restaurants that made the cut and the spot they landed in:
Damas (7)
Bouillon Bilk (13)
Île Flottante (23)
Le Club Chasse et Pêche (36)
La Finca (50)
Saint Sushi Plateau (62)
Sushi Momo (71)
Ma Poule Mouillée (73)
Falafel St-Jacques (77)
L'Avenue (78)
Régine Café (80)
Le Pick-Up (81)
Pégase (82)
Janine Café (83)
O'Thym (84)
Le Marquis (86)
Oui Mais Non (88)
Bocata (91)
Restaurant Bonaparte (92)
Café Lulu (95)
So, how many of these delish and decadent Montreal eateries have you been to?
This article's cover image was used for illustrative purposes only.
“I have problems with food,” I told a new romantic partner.
“Like, you’re bad at cooking?” he asked. This was offensive, since I had already cooked for him on multiple occasions.
We’d been seeing each other for about four months, and I was ready to open up. I had an issue, one that had festered in silence in past relationships. For about 15 years, I’ve dealt with an eating disorder of variable severity. The parts of it that feel most disruptive—purging, diet pill abuse, day-long fasts—are in the rearview, I hope. I’m high-functioning, physically healthy, and able to eat meals socially. And still, I’m undeniably controlled by food and exercise. While it’s easier to pretend I’m fully recovered, doing so also feels tantamount to accepting that my current relationship with food is as good as it will ever get, and I don’t want that for myself. I had sought out a new therapist who said communicating openly with those close to me would help me stop pretending. But I really, really, really didn’t want to.
It’s my instinct to talk about my eating disorder in the past tense, or to not talk about it at all. I do not believe I’m alone: 9 percent of Americans will struggle with an eating disorder in their lifetime. By contrast, 18 percent of Americans will struggle with an anxiety disorder in any given year, and sure enough, in the past month, I’ve spoken with 11 friends who referenced an anxiety problem. Zero mentioned an eating disorder. This is anecdotal, of course—hopefully none of them have an eating disorder—but it aligns with my own experience. I, too, have an anxiety disorder, and I find it far easier to discuss than my food issues.
I am correct, to an extent, in worrying about disclosure. Sometimes, this kind of discussion ignores sensitivity. We saw this play out on a massive scale when Taylor Swift was criticized for a scene in her “Anti-Hero” music video, in which she stepped on a scale that read “fat.” It was meant to portray her experience with an eating disorder, but she eventually removed the imagery from the video because it was seen as fatphobic, which prompted its own backlash from those who felt like she had accurately represented their experiences with eating disorders.
But fear of a backlash is not an excuse for silence, especially not when I’ve been so inspired by other adults who opened up. I can admit that I was moved to tears by an episode of Glennon Doyle’s podcast in which she admitted to relapsing on her bulimia. It felt both groundbreaking and deeply comforting to hear another adult talk about an eating disorder in the present tense, so much so that after listening to the episode, I booked an appointment with my new therapist. It was the first time in a long time I didn’t feel that I “should” be over my eating disorder. From there, I began to unpack why I’m so hesitant to talk about it. The main reason became obvious: shame.
“Misconceptions about eating disorders abound. Three popular ones include that eating disorders are about shallow vanity, affect only young adults and teens, and happen primarily to white females,” Alli Spotts-De Lazzer, licensed therapist and author of MeaningFULL, told me via email. Even though I know the prevalence of eating disorders peaks not in the teens but in the mid twenties for women and early thirties for men, much of my shame springs from feeling like I’m too old to still have one. And not just the age itself—it’s the sense that I failed to recover when it seems like everyone else did. I’ve begun asking people how they recovered. Some say therapy, others say time, and still others say they’re not quite sure when it stopped controlling their lives. (For the record, I’ve had quite a lot of therapy and time.) One woman told me she was hospitalized for an eating disorder as a teenager. I asked her if she still struggled with food, and her response was, “No, of course not—I’m getting married,” as if an eating disorder was a problem that needed to be solved before the rest of her life could go on. Her serious romantic relationship indicated a resolution to a problem I’ve found chronic. And so, I feel left behind, embarrassed, like I haven’t grown up.
Those misconceptions cut both ways. While I’m ashamed to have an eating disorder when it doesn’t feel like a problem meant for me, a person in her thirties, it also feels like a problem exactly meant for me, a privileged white woman. Someone once told me she tried to be empathetic about eating disorders but couldn’t understand them, because in her family, people were just so grateful to have enough food. I felt a lump rise in my throat as she spoke; I too wanted gratitude for having enough food. Instead, when my eating disorder first cropped up in my mid-teens, I got an expensive therapist. And yet, I still had an eating disorder.
I find my eating disorder especially tricky to talk about because it draws attention to my appearance. As a teenager, I wanted it to create concern—it was a cry for help. At 16, I didn’t yet know that most of womanhood is just resigning your body to constant examination. Now, I’ve been perceived enough. I have no interest in opening up about something that might cause others to scrutinize my body, in search of a heuristic for how successfully I’m combating my problem. Not only does it make me self-conscious, but also, it’s inaccurate. My disorder is more about control than the way my body looks, and its severity has not corresponded to fluctuations in my weight. Instead, I cling to it when the rest of my life is in disarray. The worst relapse I had in the last five years was at the start of the pandemic, when I had no control over the world’s reopening. This is not unique to me. Weight is not an accurate measure of whether someone is still struggling; eating disorder patients can have any body type, and fewer than 6 percent of patients are underweight.
And such attention can turn ugly. “If a person in a smaller body talks about their eating disorder, they might get ignorant comments inferring that they’re choosing to starve themselves and they should just go eat a burger—as if it weren’t a deadly mental illness and it was as simple as eating a burger. Someone in a larger body is often met with flat-out disbelief and encouragement to continue harmful ED behaviors,” said licensed social worker Shira Rosenbluth. Similarly harmful are comments like, “But you don’t look like you have an eating disorder” or, “But I saw you eat that one time,” she continued. This sentiment can come from a well-intentioned place; I’ve heard people express relief that a friend with an eating disorder seemed to “look” better. Still, the very idea of such scrutiny makes me so self-conscious I’m loath to speak about my eating disorder in the present tense when I speak about it at all.
I don’t want people scrutinizing my body, and I don’t want them scrutinizing their own. I can count on one hand the number of friends who have never expressed dissatisfaction or insecurity about their own bodies, and I feel guilty bringing up the subject at all, considering our culture’s obsession with weight. “Even if it’s well-intended, sharing details can provide a how-to manual for vulnerable people,” said Spotts-De Lazzer. “And for people in the throes of an eating disorder, those kinds of details may trigger them to compete. For example, it could be something like this: If he/she/they didn’t eat for X-number of hours, I’ll try for two more than that.”
Because society glamorizes thinness, and because eating disorders are incorrectly associated with weight, they are socially contagious. #EDTwitter is an online community that I assumed was for those with eating disorders to support one another. As I scrolled through, I saw some posts expressing love and asking for help. But I also saw that many, if not most, offered tips on how to develop eating disorders. In my horror, I felt like a hypocrite. I wanted to believe people should be able to talk openly about their eating disorders in the present tense, and here, finally, was a community of people doing just that. Their pro-ED posts weren’t entirely unfamiliar—I’d fallen into similar communities on MySpace as a teenager—but I was looking at them with new eyes. New, healthier eyes, it seemed. So much so that I began to think maybe I didn’t have an eating disorder. I certainly wasn’t struggling the way the most active posters in this community were. Maybe, I thought, maybe I’m just a person concerned with her weight, as so many of us are. And herein lay the great risk of not opening up about eating disorders.
I am lucky to have my physical health, but telling myself “it could be worse” leads me to forget that there’s help available for me; that there’s a life out there for me in which fewer than 90 percent of my thoughts are about food. Doyle addressed something similar in her podcast when she said she doesn’t hide her disorder from her children. She described how when she exhibits behaviors like taking a bite of a cookie and throwing the rest away (something I’ve done myself many times), she makes sure her kids know this is disordered, not healthy. Instead of normalizing it, she calls it what it is.
“It is hard for people to recognize that they have an eating disorder when there is such widespread acceptance for things like intermittent fasting, cutting out entire food groups, and compulsively exercising,” said Dr. Charlotte Markey, a professor of psychology at Rutgers. In a scene in Center Stage, ballet dancer Maureen is trying to tell her mother she wants to quit dancing, and one of her reasons is it’s making her sick. She confesses to throwing up everything she eats, and her mother responds, “You watch your weight, there’s nothing wrong with that.” Of course, there is something wrong with it.
There are ways we can begin to open up. “As with any important and vulnerable conversations, it’s usually best to make sure that both parties are available to each other. First, state your intentions, such as, ‘I want to share something important to me with you.’ Then, make sure they can be present and available: ‘Is this a good time?’ or, ‘When would be a good time to connect?’” Spotts-De Lazzer said. “Some people will feel safer than others to share with. Pick thoughtfully. Sort through what you’re initially willing to talk about and with whom. Start there. Also, consider scripting out what you want to say so you have an anchor and can even read it, if needed.” She adds that for anyone who feels they can’t share with their own community first, an eating disorder support group or specialist could fill in. I’ve found online support groups myself that helped. Initially, I kept my video off and my camera muted. I liked that I was able to choose my level of engagement, and not share anything (even my name) until I was ready.
Before I started working with my new therapist, and before I started writing this essay, I would have said the reason I didn’t want to communicate about my eating disorder is other people’s misconceptions about them. I would have said that I personally know all the statistics—I’ve Googled them compulsively, I can tell you that eating disorders affect all kinds of people. I would have said I know eating disorders are serious problems, and I know they’re about much more than privilege and vanity. I would have said the problem is that other people don’t know as much as me, so I can’t open up to other people. But I was ignoring my own misconceptions. I’m wrong to believe I should be embarrassed. I’m wrong to assume my friends don’t want to know. Mostly, I’m wrong to think I’m the only one suffering. And it’s not until we start to talk about them—not as resolved issues of the past, but as very real, present dangers—that we can disband these assumptions.
So I told my new partner. “My sister had an eating disorder,” he responded. “They’re horrible. How can I help?”
If you or someone you know needs help, contact the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA)onlineor at (800) 931-2237. If you have an emergency, text NEDA at 741741.
Ginny Hogan is a stand up comedian and writer. She’s the author of “I’m More Dateable than a Plate of Refried Beans,” and you can find her on Twitter at ginnyhogan_.
It’s always nice for little old Victoria to get some recognition amongst the massive metropolitan areas of Canada when it comes to our culinary scene.
Greater Victoria is small but mighty, and the city also has to deal with some of the highest lease costs for restaurants to endure across the country
Greater Vancouver had a whopping 13 restaurants make Yelp’s top 100, and they also snagged the number one spot with Vancouver’s Northern Cafe and Grill.
Despite the odds not always being in our favour, we push through and find our success where we can and now, Yelp has noticed.
The foodie community on Yelp has celebrated several Victoria restaurants and these three spots made theirYelp’s Top Places to Eat in 2023:
A gem that is nestled in the woods along Highway 14. This spot served up carefully crafted baked goods, brunch, lunch, coffee and other delicious treats to surfers, travellers and locals alike.
They are known for their sandwiches which are made on house made focaccia bread, made fresh every morning. The sandwiches are pressed and served panini style with local greens.
Their soups are also well known to people coming in out of the wet, cold Vancouver Island air looking for something to warm their bones.
Make sure to save some room for a Pain au Chocolat or a muffin to-go on the way out!
Where:2794 Sheringham Point Road, Shirley (past Sooke)
The most well-known lineup in Victoria is the Jam Cafe line.
Every weekend and many weekdays, the Herald Street cafe will fill up as soon as they open and an eager queue will form along their sidewalk or under their patio’s umbrella coverage in the rain.
The wait is well worth it though.
They’ve got bennies, Tex-Mex brunch items, hash, French toast, waffles, pancakes and more. As far as Yelp is concerned, Jam Cafe is the preeminent breakfast spot in Victoria and brunchers would likely agree.
You really can’t go wrong with an order of chilaquiles and bottomlessDrumroasterdrip coffee, which is roasted locally in Cobble Hill.
Where:542 Herald Street, Victoria
When:8 a.m. to 2 p.m., seven days a week
What is your favourite spot in Victoria that didn’t make the list? Let us know in the comments!