The search for the ultimate walking food

Your plane is leaving in 15 minutes. You skipped lunch. You can only buy trail mix for $4 on board. And that trail mix is in a bag just large enough to fully awaken your hunger. What do you do, hot shot? What do you do?

I grab a teeny chicken panini from Argo Tea in O’Hare Airport. The miniature baguette — a bit larger than a banana — comes in a paper sleeve. It’s the right size for eating and running. Small bites that can be consumed between expletives. While it’s well-suited for transportation, I’m nailing down raisins, peanuts and candy-coated chocolate pieces 15 minutes later. The teeny panini is eminently portable; but it would fail to satisfy the hunger of a smurf.

Here we come to the challenge to find good walking (or in this case, running) food. What’s portable is not always satisfying. And what is satisfying can result in unwanted stains or an abundance of trash.