BrainStuff Classics: Why Doesn't Airline Food Taste Good?

If you've ever noticed that airplane food is a little lackluster, the recipe isn't necessarily to blame. Learn how a plane's altitude and even engine noise can affect flavors in this classic episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://science.howstuffworks.com/transport/flight/modern/mile-bleh-club-why-airline-food-doesnt-taste-good.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff.
I'm Lauren vocal Bomb, and today's episode is a classic
from the vault. This one has to do with the
science of flavor perception and just how much flying in
an airplane or a spaceship for that matter, can muck
it up. Stuff really does taste different when you fly.

(00:27):
Hey brain Stuff, Lauren vocal Bomb. Here, the next time
your taste buds revolt at the first bite of an
in flight meal, try holding your tongue. Not literally, of course,
but instead of grousing about airlines and the food they serve,
the blame for poor tasting fair may rest squarely in
your mouth and the way your senses respond to the noise, pressure,
and altitude associated with air travel. It's a lesson Julia

(00:51):
Buckley learned firsthand. A United Kingdom based travel journalist and
frequent Transatlantic flyer, Buckley was selected by British Airways to
help choose a new on board tea. She told us
via email, I was one of the judges for the
final stage when it was down to three potential teas
on a flight. We blind tasted four teas at various
stages of the flight. I was convinced I was selecting

(01:13):
the same one throughout as my favorite, but actually my
choices were changing with every tasting. Later, Buckley learned that
the tea she'd liked best on the ground had been
the one that became unbearably acidic halfway through the flight.
She was surprised and a little mortified. She said, I
hadn't realized how much taste changes in the air. The
two teas that felt overpowering on the ground were the

(01:34):
most palatable in the air within an hour of the flight,
whereas the most delicate one suddenly lost its flavor and
brought the acidity to the forefront. It's a phenomenon researchers
at Cornell University witnessed as they gauged the reactions of
forty eight people to flavors under different conditions. They gave
the participants liquids designed to mimic one of our five
taste sensations sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami or savory.

(01:59):
As participants sampled the solutions, they did so under two
different scenarios, first in silence, and second while listening to
the sound of an eighty five decibel jet engine. The
results showed the participant's sense of salty, sour, and bitter
remained about the same whether or not conditions were noisy. However,
these same inflight sounds dulled sweet tastes and enhanced umami

(02:21):
tastes like tomato juice, which may explain why tomato juice
and bloody mary cocktails are so popular at altitude. By
the way, alcoholic drinks don't actually become more potent on planes,
but they can feel that way because altitude restricts your
body's oxygen intake. It seems that multiple sensory properties of
our environment can change how we perceive food and drink,

(02:43):
and it isn't only air travel that can have an effect.
Shanti salibert, al, Los Angeles based senior writer for Modern Hiker,
spent several weeks at ten thousand feet that's about three
thousand meters above sea level as she traversed the Pacific
Crest Trail. She told us, as I crept higher in
our higher I noticed my appetite changed drastically. I found

(03:03):
my palette swaying to the extremes. I craved boatloads of
salt and the sugariest sweets I could find. These yearnings
for salty and intensely sweet flavors fall right in line
with the findings at Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics.
At an airline's request, the institute set out to study
passengers perceptions of sweetness and saltiness and discovered that both

(03:24):
dropped by up to thirty percent during arid simulated flight conditions.
It's something to keep in mind the next time you
fly and opt for a promising tomato based entree and beverage.
Today's episode is based on the article mile Blah Club,
Why airline food doesn't Taste good on HowStuffWorks dot Com,

(03:47):
written by Laur L. Dove. Brain Stuff is production of
by Heart Radio in partnership with houstuffworks dot Com and
is produced by Tyler Plang. Four more podcasts for my
heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite show.