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Catching an early morning flight and thinking about eating something on the plane is quite a regular thing among many passengers. But have you ever realised that the sandwich you order at your favourite restaurant is different from the one you consume on your flight? Or perhaps the soup tastes different while in flight? It should come as no surprise that the food you eat when sitting down at home or at a restaurant has a very different flavour than the food you eat while travelling by airline. It is thus not unexpected that much of the food supplied on aeroplanes tastes bland and rarely has a flavour of its own.
The Reason
Altitude has an impact on our taste senses, thus that's one of the often occurring causes of this. The altitudes are pretty high while flying. The majority of the aircraft operate between 33,000 and 42,000 feet in the air. Because of the odd way that our brain cells respond to taste buds at this altitude, the food tastes bland or awful. However, the common cause of why food tastes different when you're flying is altitude. Here are a few more causes for it.
Due to a lot of air pressure on you when flying, the blood oxygen levels lowers and it impairs your sense of smell. It implies that if the plane is travelling at 800-900 km/h, you are also travelling at that speed, which exerts significant pressure on the body. Your senses, including your taste buds, might be impacted by too much pressure. Therefore, there is a good likelihood that the food aboard an aeroplane won't taste good.
One of the main causes of your food's unpleasant flavour is oversalted food. The chefs who prepare the food for flights typically add more salt to it so that it will taste great, but this has the opposite effect. Aside from that, eating too much salt causes dehydration, which makes everything taste even worse.
The majority of meals prepared for aeroplane travel are created in bulk, usually at once for thousands of diners. We all know that eating this kind of food frequently entails sacrificing flavor, which accounts for the bland flavour of aeroplane meals.
No food must can be cooked at high altitude in accordance with food safety regulations. Thus, it gets prepared on the ground. It means that before it even reaches your plane, the food you get to consume on a flight has been prepared, packaged, and even chilled. There is therefore no choice but to reheat it. The taste of your food might be greatly impacted by rewarming because it loses freshness and nutrients. Additionally, it may alter the chemical make-up of some foods, changing how they taste.
The cabins have dry air because you are in the air, which means the humidity in the aircraft is less than 12%, and that clearly affects our nostrils. The food may taste extremely different and bland by the time you actually eat it.
This may surprise you, but as per a study by Cornell University it is found that noisy situations, such as airplanes, have an effect on our perception of taste, particularly on sweet and umami flavours. This is just one of the reasons why a powerfully flavoured savoury dish like a curry tastes so much better than a strawberry cheesecake.
