Protein is the difference between landing hungry and landing hangry. This is what rides in our bags.
Sweet
Legendary Foods
Protein Pastry, Cherry
Tastes like the toaster pastry of your childhood, with 20 grams of protein and almost no sugar. It’s a real breakfast on a travel morning when breakfast isn’t happening. Individually wrapped and squash-resistant enough to survive a personal item.
Legendary Foods
Protein Pastry, S’mores
Same trick as the cherry one, in s’mores. We alternate. Twenty grams of protein dressed up as dessert, which is exactly the bribe you need in hour nine of a travel day. One in each bag before every long flight.
Quest
Chocolate Frosted Protein Donuts
A chocolate frosted donut with 14 grams of protein and barely any sugar, which feels like getting away with something. These are the airport-coffee companion that doesn’t wreck the rest of the day. They travel better than actual donuts, too.
Quest
Stacks Protein Bars, Cinnamon Brown Sugar
A protein bar that eats like a cinnamon pastry, with 20 grams of protein. Bars are the most space-efficient food a bag can carry: flat, unsquashable, no refrigeration. A couple of these have saved us from more overpriced airport sandwiches than I can count.
Pure Protein
Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars
The workhorse protein bar: 20 grams, chocolate peanut butter, and cheap enough to buy in bulk and scatter through every bag we own. Not fancy, always there. The one you’re glad exists when dinner turns out to be a train platform vending machine.
Shameless Snacks
Candy Carnival Gummy Variety Pack
Candy that isn’t a sugar bomb: low calorie, low sugar, and actually sour. This is the treat bag for long drives and movie nights in a rental. Not protein, I’ll admit it, but every snack list needs one bag of candy and this is the one that doesn’t hurt.
Sargento
Balanced Breaks
Cheese, dried fruit, and chocolate in one little tray, which is a charcuterie board that fits in a cooler bag. These are for the road trips and the hotel-fridge trips rather than the long hauls, since the cheese wants to stay cool. Portion-controlled without feeling sad.
Savory
Pure Protein
Popped Crisps Variety Pack
Chips that pull their weight: popped crisps with real protein, in single-serving bags that don’t get crushed into dust the way a chip bag does. The barbecue ones go first in our house. Great plane snack because they’re not greasy and don’t smell.
Crisp Power
Protein Pretzels Variety Pack
Pretzels with protein built in, which fixes the pretzel’s one flaw: it’s crunchy air. These are what I hand Matt when he says he’s fine and I know he isn’t. Single-serve bags, sturdy, and they don’t melt in a hot car.
Quest
Spicy Cheese Crackers
Spicy cheese crackers with 10 grams of protein and almost no carbs. They scratch the junk-food itch on a long drive without the junk-food crash an hour later. The spice level is real enough to keep you awake, which is occasionally the point.
Jack Link’s
Mini Beef Jerky Sticks, 12 Pack
Half-ounce jerky sticks, individually wrapped, which is the right size for a bag pocket. Jerky is the best protein-to-weight ratio a carry-on can hold, and it doesn’t care about heat, cold, or being sat on. One caution: pack them in checked luggage or eat them before customs on international trips, since meat can’t enter a lot of countries.
The Only Bean
Crunchy Roasted Edamame, Sea Salt
Roasted edamame that crunches like a chip and carries protein like a bar. This is the snack for the stretch of trip where you’ve eaten nothing green in four days and your body knows it. Single-serve bags, and plant-based, for the flights where jerky feels wrong.
Wilde
Sea Salt & Vinegar Protein Chips
Chips made from chicken, which sounds strange until you try them and then you buy them by the case. Salt and vinegar sharp enough to count, with the protein of a chicken breast per bag. The travel snack I get the most questions about.
Wilde
Buffalo Style Protein Chips
The buffalo version of the chicken chips, for the half of the household that thinks everything should taste like wing sauce. Same deal: chip crunch, chicken-breast protein, no fridge needed. Between the two flavors, these are the ones that vanish first.
The staples
Planters
Deluxe Mixed Nuts
Mixed nuts are the original travel protein and they still win: no wrapper trash, no melt, no crumbs. We decant a jar into small bags before a trip, one per day bag. The deluxe mix means no filler peanuts, which matters more than it should.
Kirkland Signature
Fancy Mixed Nuts, 40 oz
The big jar. This is the one that lives in the rental kitchen and refills the little bags all trip. Costco-sized value, heavy on cashews, and it means the good snacks don’t run out on day three.
Amazon Grocery
Deluxe Mixed Nuts, 16 oz
The same idea at the smaller size, for when a 40-ounce jar is more commitment than the trip deserves. Roasted, salted, no peanut filler. One of these plus a bag of dried fruit is a whole flight’s snack plan.
Ice Breakers
Wintergreen Mints, 8 Tins
Not protein, just necessary. A tin in every bag, because a nine-hour flight plus airplane coffee is a crime against whoever sits next to you at dinner. Eight tins means never doing the where-are-the-mints dance at security.
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