It isn’t even food as I understand the definition. Which is why I always bring my own.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter on the merits of airplane food.

Who buys food on airplanes anymore? It’s ridiculously expensive and crap.

But in furthering honoring the 30th anniversary of the release of the movie, Airplane, today’s USA Today has a story about the sorry state of food on airplanes.

Six months ago, Food and Drug Administration inspectors say, they found live roaches and dead roach carcasses "too numerous to count" inside the Denver facility of the world’s largest airline caterer, LSG Sky Chefs.

They also reported finding ants, flies and debris, and employees handling food with bare hands. Samples from a kitchen floor tested positive for Listeria, a bacteria that can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, the elderly and people with weakened immune systems. It’s also dangerous to pregnant women.

LSG Sky Chefs, which annually provides 405 million meals worldwide for more than 300 airlines, says conditions at the Denver plant didn’t meet company standards. It took immediate measures to remedy the problems, says spokeswoman Beth Van Duyne.

The Denver facility is one of many catering operations that provide food to airlines where FDA inspectors saw unsanitary and unsafe conditions in the last two years, according to inspection reports obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by USA Today.

The reports show "caterers for many of the nation’s air carriers are contaminating foods in a number of ways," says Roy Costa, a consultant and public health sanitarian who voluntarily agreed to review the reports.