Solid food sails through security

Solid food sails through a plane security checkpoint — the TSA only gets cranky about liquids, gels, and spreads.

So pack your lunch box like a picnic, not a fridge. Sandwiches, fruit, veggies, nuts, chips, crackers, hard cheese, cookies — all fine. The whole solids category basically walks through the X-ray without a second look.

The trap is anything that reads as liquid or gel on the machine. Yogurt, hummus, peanut butter, jam, cream cheese, soup, sauce, pudding — over 3.4 ounces and it’s in the bin. Under that, it has to squeeze into your quart-sized liquids bag. Honestly, not worth the fight. Buy the single-serve yogurt after you land.

Two more tricks. Freeze your cold pack completely solid — a fully frozen ice pack is allowed, a slushy one gets pulled. And keep your food loose in a bin-friendly bag so you can slide it onto the belt instead of digging through your backpack at 6 AM. Bring an empty water bottle and fill it past security, too.

The people losing their hummus at the checkpoint are the ones who didn’t read the label.