Most of us would agree that our favorite meals weren’t eaten on an airplane. Airline food is often premade, reheated, and served in a paper tray with flimsy plastic utensils. The whole experience can be underwhelming. But aside from the obvious, there are other lesser known reasons why your food tastes a bit off when you’re many miles in the air.
You might think your tastebuds are the only things involved in tasting food, but they are just one factor. Sight, smell, taste, and texture all work together to help you perceive flavor, according to Dr. Robert Pellegrino, postdoctoral fellow at Monell Chemical Senses Center. And when you’re flying, many of these senses are negatively affected, leading to a poor dining experience. Sure, the in-flight food may not be stellar to begin with, but the environment isn't helping things.
Why Food Tastes Different on a Plane
According to Dr. Pellegrino, the three main things that will impact your senses mid-flight are low air pressure in the cabin, lack of humidity, and high noise levels. The low pressure and low humidity can impact the way you smell. For example, a dry nose without much moisture has a difficult time letting odorants through. And as we all know, smell and taste are closely linked. Even if food was much better on airplanes, it might still taste different than it would if you were eating it in your home.
Dr. Pellegrino said that sound has been shown to impact our ability to perceive alcohol levels, but it also has an impact on taste." To test how taste can be influenced by noise, a 2015 study had participants taste different solutions while in an environment simulating loud airline cabin noise. It was found that participants perceived a decrease in sweetness and an increase in umami flavors, which is linked to the chorda tympani nerve. Running from the tongue through the middle ear, the nerve can be impacted by loud sounds, and therefore any disruptions to it can affect taste. So maybe next time you fly, maybe wait to eat your meal until the baby next to you stops crying.
Food and Drinks That Were Made for Planes
To combat these taste interferences, more airlines are starting to offer menu items that are formulated to be enjoyed in the air. Over the past year, Alaska Airlines has worked with Stumptown Coffee Roasters and Fremont Brewing to craft coffee and beer specifically for flights.
Fremont Brewing has supplied beer to Alaska Airlines flights for years, but Cloud Cruiser is the first custom craft beer brewed for the airline. When developing the beer, Fremont Brewing founder and CEO Matt Lincecum focused on two things: the malt bill (barley and grains) and hops.
“Dark malts can lead to perception of spoilage or cardboard characters in a beer, especially at high altitude,” he said. To combat this, the team removed all the dark grains from the beer and left Two Row Pale Malt and Munich Malt, both of which are light and bright.
The team also chose hops that would sustain a fresh flavor when in the air: Citrus, Simcoe, and Bravo. “Those three hop varieties really sustain the rigors of flight at altitude,” he said. “They don’t taste off, they don’t taste musty, they taste fresh and bright.”
They also had to consider the alcohol content of Cloud Cruiser. “If you have a beer that's too little alcohol, it's not going to be able to sustain the pressures of flight. It’s gonna taste real thin, real quick,” he said. “If we get too high alcohol, that's something you don't want, obviously on an airplane.”
While menus and products designed for flights are one way to counteract the effects of flying, there might be some elements that are too difficult to change.
“Food is just going to taste very different than what it tastes like on the ground, and people don’t like different,” said Dr. Pellegrino
From the noise affecting taste and smell, to the uncomfortable seats, plastic utensils, and interrupted circadian rhythm, Dr. Pellegrino said that there's a variety of variables at play when in flight. “I think just the overall different nature of the food is going to be a problem.”
“There’s a big difference between eating a steak in a nice restaurant with heavy silverware with your friends than eating alone outside in a park on a paper dish.”
