Ah, America. Fresh and tasty like Dunkin and his donut. After a summer of oatcakes and raspberries, my newly trained family returns to the USA just in time for breakfast. Waking up at 3:30am my little travelers slip into the shorts they rarely wore all summer and leave the hotel motel to catch a 4 am shuttle to the airport.

“We didn’t have room service yet!” whines the child destined for a more gentle life that excludes nights at crash ‘n dash motels. Even the all-you-can-eat breakfast bar certain to be stocked with doughy white flour bagels and super-sweet yogurt is closed.

If it were up to me, we’d arrive at the airport moments before take-off, but the responsible man to whom I am married insists we arrive early. Such wisdom pays off when we discover we are droplets in a rainstorm of people fleeing to Port Au Prince and apparently taking with them every single item they own.

With a $50 surcharge on every additional bag plus the numerous red stickers I see noting HEAVY attached to their bags and those correlating fees, I’m amazed at the hundreds of extra dollars these people are paying to travel. Even if they are permanently moving, do they really need that much stuff? The Husband knocks me off my high-horse and suggests that maybe they are taking merchandise to poor relations. Ouch. My bad..

It is fact that my children must have caloric reinforcement every few hours or they become unpleasant and have to be put in their cages. When we arrive in Chicago the bowl of oatmeal they ate three hours earlier in Boston starts to wear off on cue of the clock reaching 7:30am. The first whine sends me off to kill a second breakfast for the offspring lest they destroy the control tower and cause major disruption.

Gazing around the food court I rule out McDonalds’, Dunkin Donuts, Pizza Express, and a host of other fast food options. Seriously searching I find not one whole food in the entire O’Hare airport. After the big investment in healthy eating this summer, I refuse to turn back and stuff a sausage biscuit in the mouth of my growing little people.

The best choice I can make is a bag of nuts for one child and a Clif Bar for the other. After my big display of walking every nook and cranny of the facility searching for an acceptable snack and dragging the family behind me, The Husband announces, “I’ll be right back. I’m going to get a Chicken N’ Biscuit at McDonald’s.” He wasn’t even teasing!

On the plane the stewardess announces she has “Chocolate Chip Mega Bite Cookies” for sale at $3. Only moments earlier the obese woman who had been waiting in the handicapped chairs endured the walk of shame down the isle as she turned her body sideways in an attempt to squeeze through all the seated passengers and make her way to her seats in the back of the plane.

How could an entire nation miss the message? Where has America gone wrong? It’s not just America; it’s poor people everywhere. It’s no secret that processed foods are marketed as cheap, easy fixes for hunger, and seemingly, the corn syrup has gone to people’s minds and they don’t realize that empty calories don’t endure. As a result, at least double the money is spent on poor quality food because it takes twice as much of it to keep a body running.

Furthermore, the “cheap” food isn’t really that cheap. The Clif Bar we selected was a fourth of the cost of an offering from McDonald’s. A serving of oatmeal made at home is virtually free. Granted oatmeal doesn’t have that greasy hash brown taste, but the flip side is that after consumption the mouth doesn’t have a rancid taste and the desire to take a nap isn’t overwhelming.

Somehow Irish Family would have traveled with apples, bananas, cheese sandwiches, oatcakes berries and nuts. At some point, I can’t tote two full days of food on my back for four people. Why isn’t there a better choice?

A few summers ago K and I rode a train to Italy with a beautiful skinny young woman who was on her way home from a glamorous vacation in Ibiza. When the food chart rolled by I bought a pastrami sandwich but was embarrassed to be the fat girl eating a sandwich ‘o lard while the skinny girl stared out the window. I commented that the food choices were so bad and asked her what she ate when traveling. She said, “Oh, I never eat bought food like that. I only eat at my house.” Well, yea, I say, but when you’re traveling all day you have to eat something. She responds, “I eat my toast and fruit in the morning and eat nothing until I reach my destination.”

That strategy does not work for me, or my children. Until the food industry changes, I guess I have to tote a sack of groceries everywhere I go or risk becoming the lady who can’t fit down the airplane isle.