They came for your laptops. And for your liquids, and your shoes. Now, the Transportation Security Administration is coming for your snacks.

Passengers at airports across the country — including all three of the Washington region’s major airports — are reporting a rise in TSA agents instructing them to remove their snacks and other food items from their carry-ons and place them in those ubiquitous plastic bins for a separate screening.

It’s not part of the agency’s standard policy, according to TSA spokesman Mike England. It’s simply a recommendation issued by the agency last year to help speed the bag-check process. Screening supervisors at airports have the discretion to decide whether, and when, to demand that passengers proffer up their pretzel packs for a solo trip through the X-ray machine.

But the “recommendation” appears to be gaining steam and moving rapidly into the territory of de-facto protocol, according to travelers who have received snack-related notices from their airlines, and who have been informed by rank-and-file TSA screeners that the snack checks are now standard practice.