Eating at airports gets more healthful

You have no more excuses for eating junk food while traveling.

At the nation’s busiest airports, 76 percent of restaurants offer at least one healthful entree, according to a survey by a panel of doctors. That’s a big improvement from 2001, when only 57 percent of airports offered at least one healthful dish.

In a ranking of 18 airports by the nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Denver International Airport came out on top, with 86 percent of its restaurants offering healthful dishes such as wraps, barley burgers, vegetable soup, Roma tomato pani­nis and spinach salads. Detroit International Airport was close behind with an 85 percent score. (Hono­lulu Airport was not ranked.)

Los Angeles International Airport tied for third place with 83 percent, an increase of 7 percentage points from 2012. But LAX might move up the ranking because the study was completed before the airport expanded the Tom Bradley International Terminal in September with 31 new eateries.

"The emphasis on fresh, healthy fare is a major highlight of Tom Bradley’s new dining program," said Eileen Hanson, a spokes­woman for Westfield Inc., the concessions developer at the terminal.

But LAX is not all sprouts and tofu. You can still stuff yourself at three McDonald’ses, two Panda Expresses and two Burger Kings.

For the third year in a row, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world’s busiest airport, was at the bottom of the healthy-food ranking with a score of 51 percent.

AMERICANS USING FEWER VACATION DAYS

The economy may be improving, but Americans are spending less time relaxing.

The average American got 14 days of vacation over the last year but took only 10 days away from work, leaving twice as many days of unused vacation compared with the previous year, according to a study conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of the travel website Expedia.

But when it comes to vacationing, Americans still take more time off than their Japa­nese counterparts, who got an average of 18 vacation days but used only seven, the study found. South Koreans took seven out of 10 vacation days they were offered.

The world leaders in vacationing are the French, who took all of the 30 days available to them in the last year. And yet 90 percent of employed French adults either strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement "I feel vacation deprived," according to the study of 8,535 working adults in 24 countries.

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Hugo Martin, Los Angeles Times