Have you ever ever considered why things taste different at 30,000 feet?
As a consequence of the dryness of the air within the cabin, humans experience dehydration that diminishes every drop of moisture needed from our nasal and bronchial passages — which is why our senses of taste and smell change so drastically inflight, Food & Wine reported.
On top of the dehydration, the upper air pressure and noise level of 80 decibels-plus also aren’t friends to those senses.
On a flight, once the plane reaches cruising altitude, half of the air we breathe comes from the atmosphere through which the plane is flying, and the opposite half is filtered air.
Which means that the air within the airplane cabin is dry with a humidity level of about 12%.
Compare that to the daytime atmospheric humidity within the Mojave Desert in California, which hovers between 10% and 30% depending on the season, and also you’ll realize just how low that number is.
There’s not much to be done about our senses of taste and smell altering at in-flight altitudes. And though you would possibly have the ability to taste some things, it likely won’t be similar to while you’re on the bottom.
For instance, salty and sweet tastes are especially weaker at higher altitudes — so, to get through to your senses, the food you receive on a plane may have roughly 20% more salt in a savory dish than usual, and about that or more sugar for dessert.
That’s in response to a recent Post interview with Charles Spence, an experimental psychologist at England’s Oxford University who studies how certain environments and sounds impact taste.
Nonetheless, he also intriguingly shared that “wearing noise-canceling headphones can actually make the foods and drinks taste higher within the air.”
A 2011 study from Germany’s renowned Fraunhofer Institute staged a trial during which “in-flight diners” sat in cramped seats in a pressure chamber that was designed to simulate the low air pressure of an airplane cabin at 30,000 feet.
The airline Lufthansa, which commissioned the study, provided food to the participants to eat while they were surrounded by the 80-decibel drone of aircraft engines and while their seats vibrated to mimic turbulence.
The study found that tastes described as bitter, sour and spicy were the tastes that held up through the in-flight experience. Tomato juice — like in a bloody mary — also gave the impression to be proof against losing its taste within the sky.
Other tests have shown that one set of tastes that seems to remain consistent under altitude changes is that of umami, which is the savory core taste of Japanese cuisine, comparable to soy-inflected sauces, yakitori and miso. That is possibly because umami dishes are inclined to have higher sodium levels.
“If it weren’t for the boredom many feel while flying, one of the best advice would at all times be to eat on the bottom,” Spence said.
But when you want decent food within the sky, go for something spicy or salty, like Mexican food or sushi.
“Anything with umami taste, so Parmesan cheese, mushrooms, tomato, etc., and, after all, to drink a bloody mary given the double dose of umami each from tomatoes and from the Worcestershire sauce,” Spence explained.
