Why does food tastes different when you are flying?

Have you ever wondered if the white pasta you ate yesterday in your favourite restaurant had a different taste than the one you had on your flight? Or even the soup tasted different while flying? Well, it is no surprise that the food you eat while sitting down in the comfort of your home or at a restaurant has quite a different taste than the ones you eat while flying in a plane. It is also not surprising that the food served in a plane rarely has a taste to it and most of the foods taste bland. (Images: istock)

Well, one of the common reasons why this happens is that altitude affects our taste buds. While flying, the altitudes are quite high. Most of the planes fly at an altitude of between 33, 000 to 42,000 feet. At this height, our brain cells react differently when it comes to taste buds and thus the food tastes bland or bad. However, altitude is just the common reason why food tastes different while you are flying. Here are some of the other reasons for it.

When you are travelling on a flight, there is a lot of pressure on your pressure which lowers the blood oxygen levels which in turn reduces the ability to smell. It means if the plane is moving at 800-900 km/h, you are also moving at the same speed and it puts a lot of pressure on the body. Too much pressure can affect your senses, which includes the taste buds as well. Thus, there are high chances that the food might not taste good on a plane.

This unfortunately is one of the biggest reasons that your food doesn't taste good. The chefs who make flight food generally increase the salt in the food so that it can be tasted fine; however, it has the reverse effect. Also, when you consume too much salt, it contributes to dehydration as well, which in turn makes things taste worse again.

Most of the meals made for the plane journeys are produced in large quantities, i.e., for thousands of diners at once. And we all know that such kinds of food often means a compromise on flavours, thus the bland taste of the plane food.

According to the food safety standards, no food can be cooked at a high altitude and thus has to be made on the ground. It means that the food you get to eat on a plane journey has been cooked, packed and even refrigerated before it even reaches your plane. Thus, leaving no other option but to reheat it in a convection oven. Reheating can affect the taste of your food a lot as it loses nutrients and fresh juices. It can also impact the composition of some foods and thus they taste different.

This may come as a shocker, but a study by Cornell University revealed that our sense of taste – specifically sweet and umami flavours are impacted by noisy environments like aeroplanes. This is just one of the reasons why you'll find that a strongly flavoured savoury dish like a curry tastes much better than a strawberry cheesecake.

As you are up in the sky, the cabins have dry air which means the humidity of the plane is less than 12 per cent and it definitely impacts our noses. By the time you actually taste the dish, it can feel very different and bland.