Kaloku Holt and his family left Honolulu for the Pacific Northwest on Sunday night.

The family travels often with their one-and-a-half-year-old Brady, who has been to Europe and across the United States.

After all the traveling they’ve done, they would run into a slight problem at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport on Sunday night.

Holt says his son Brady doesn’t eat dairy or drink formula. He loves poi.

The family took the 16 oz. poi container out of their bag and put it on the TSA conveyor belt.

“Every other city and every other airport we’ve gone to they’re very understanding,” Brady’s dad said.

“They say, ‘Okay it’s baby food, we cannot argue that,'” he said.

Holt said he was carrying Brady on his shoulder when a TSA agent grabbed the poi and told Holt he couldn’t bring the poi in his carry-on.

Holt tells KHON2 that with other airports they screen the poi and let the family on their way.

Holt tells us he told the agent the poi was for the baby, but the agent tells him he cannot bring the poi on.

TSA does require food to be taken out and screened including baby food. However, there isn’t a limit on the amount of baby food, formula, or breast milk that can be carried on.

TSA only asks parents to bring what is needed for the baby for the duration of the flight.

The TSA agent grabs a supervisor.

Brady’s dad says he’s now worried because it’s the only food they brought for their son for the six hour flight.

Holt says the TSA supervisor questioned whether poi was baby food because there’s no label on poi containers marking it as such.

“[The supervisor says] ‘Nothing says this is baby food, so how can you say its baby food?'” Holt recalls.

His response was, “‘How can you tell me it’s not baby food? I’m Hawaiian, this is what we eat.”

The Hawaii Department of Health website does list poi as baby food.

Holt says he’s traveled with the same container of poi with no issues before.

“Of all places, Hawaii was the one that gave us the most heat,” Holt said laughing.

He tells KHON2 that after several minutes, another agent told the supervisor poi was a food.

TSA eventually let the family through poi and all.

“I think [TSA] needs to get straight on what their policies are because from one agent to another and one airport to another airport, you never know what you’re going to get,” Holt said.

Because of the the government shutdown we weren’t able to get a response from TSA.

If you do have questions regarding certain items you can take a picture and send it to AskTSA on Facebook Messenger or Twitter.