Food to Fly for : LAX Tops Medical Panel’s List of Airports With Healthiest Cuisine

Here’s at least one reason to visit Los Angeles: The airport serves healthy food--for an airport, anyway.

Restaurants at Los Angeles International offer healthier food than those at any other major airport in the country, according to a report issued by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a nonprofit watchdog group in Washington.

The salads served at Creative Croissants and the vegetarian burritos at El Paseo Cafe helped LAX top a list of 19 other airports, said David Wasser, spokesman for the committee.

“In a lot of other airports, there’s nothing but junk food,” he said. “Your only choice is a hot dog.”

The physicians’ group hired consultants to taste airport food and to list the ingredients, a project that took several months. The highest marks went to restaurants serving food that contained no more than 10% fat, said Wasser. Rounding out the top five were airports in Pittsburgh; Vancouver, Canada; Seattle, and Albuquerque, N.M. (Vancouver’s was the only non-U.S. facility included in the study.)

Airports where restaurants serve hot dogs, burgers, pizza--in fact, almost anything but vegetarian dishes--were relegated to the bottom of the list. The worst offender was Hartsfield International Airport in Atlanta. The new Denver International Airport ranked 12th.

“We weren’t looking for places serving food that is slightly lower in fat, we were looking for food that is much lower in fat,” Wasser said. “Even chicken has 22 or 23 grams.”

Many of the 19 restaurants operating at LAX opened recently. In December, the airport awarded contracts to several new restaurants to replace expiring agreements with others. However, the airport’s concern was the selection, not necessarily the fat content, of the food. “We wanted restaurants that reflect the diversity of Los Angeles,” said Cora Fossett, an airport spokeswoman.