The food you eat on the plane may taste very different (and possibly tasteless), but we can’t say it’s the airline chef’s fault. In fact, your sense of taste perceives flavors much differently when you are 10 kilometers above the ground than at sea level.
The air recirculated inside an airtight aircraft cabin becomes very dry. The air in a commercial airplane is known to have about 12 percent humidity, meaning it’s drier than most deserts.
Due to the lack of moisture in the air, our nasal passages become dry and our sense of smell is less able to distinguish between odors. Since smell plays a very important role in the sense of taste, our perception of the taste of food can be dampened and its taste may become softer.
Dry air and low pressure combined cause salt to be perceived as up to 30 percent less dense and sugar up to 20 percent less dense, according to a 2010 study commissioned by the German airline Lufthansa to be regulated by the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics. .
An aroma chemist working on the project, Dr. Andrea Burdack-Freitag, in a statement, says, “The food and drink you take in flight tastes like we perceive it when we have a cold.”
The study found that Asian dishes that tend to have a more intense flavor and are rich in umami (a taste sensation associated with meat and other high-protein foods) retain their flavor more effectively than dishes described as “softer”, such as plain fish or poultry. suggests a trend.
Noise can also be a problem.
Another problem during flight can be noise. Research shows that background sounds can have a significant impact on food perception, particularly our perception of sweetness and saltiness. It can also impair your enjoyment of food, as the noise inside airplane cabins can reach around 80 decibels (about the same as a vacuum cleaner).
A 2015 study found that umami-rich foods such as tomatoes, mushrooms and aged meats tend to retain their flavor even when consumed in an airplane-like environment. Airlines reportedly caught this trend after it was noticed that passengers were consuming suspiciously high amounts of tomato juice during the flight.
“Our study confirms that a noisy environment affects our sense of taste,” said Robin Dando, assistant professor of food science at the City University of New York. Interestingly, this was typical of sweet and umami flavors, with the sweet taste being inhibited and the umami flavor significantly enhanced. “The multi-sensory characteristics of the environment in which we consume our food can change our perception of the food we eat,” he said.
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