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Science Reveals Why Airplane Food Tastes So Bad
Hugh Pickens writes "At low elevations, the 10,000 or so taste buds in the human mouth work pretty much as nature intended. But step aboard a modern airliner, and the sense of taste loses its bearings. Even before a plane takes off, the atmosphere inside the cabin dries out the nose. As the plane ascends, the change in air pressure numbs about a third of the taste buds, and at 35,000 feet with cabin humidity levels kept low by design to reduce the risk of fuselage corrosion, xerostomia or cotton mouth sets in. This explain why airlines tend to salt and spice food heavily. Without all that extra kick, food tastes bland. 'Ice cream is about the only thing I can think of that tastes good on a plane,' says Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University. 'Airlines have a problem with food on board. The packaging, freezing, drying and storage are hard on flavor at any altitude, let alone 30,000 feet.' Challenges abound. Food safety standards require all meals to be cooked first on the ground. After that, they are blast-chilled and refrigerated until they can be stacked on carts and loaded on planes. For safety, open-flame grills and ovens aren't allowed on commercial aircraft, so attendants must contend with convection ovens that blow hot, dry air over the food. 'Getting any food to taste good on a plane is an elusive goal,' says Steve Gundrum, who runs a company that develops new products for the food industry."
PanAm used to cook four-course meals on their flights. What happened?
The modern airliner cabin is pressurized to a pressure altitude of 8,000ft.
That means that as you go from airport altitude to your cruising altitude the cabin only increases
in pressure to feel like 8,000ft.
That's below the 10,000ft where the OP claims cotton-mouth, and below the 14,000 where you
can't breath, and well below the 35,000 OP cites as cruising altitude.
See: http://tinyurl.com/brmpv3j
The original article is just pure hogwash.
E
Blame the taste buds? That's like blaming the controller when you suck at video games.
Why is it that food I bring on board with me still tastes good given all these environmental factors? Oh yeah, cause Airline food just plain sucks...
"Let's go find some Turian and beat the shit out of him
$15 duty free BigMacs are the best.
I find it hard to believe that because of high altitude, the food is going to taste bad, yet they can send food into space that astronauts say taste just fine. IMO, the reason the food tastes bad, is because the Air Lines are too damn cheap to provide good quality food!
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Indeed, some of the best peanuts I've ever had were on airlines.
a,e,i,o,u and sometimes w and y (at be if of up cwm by)
'Ice cream is about the only thing I can think of that tastes good on a plane,' says Marion Nestle
And only chocolate ice cream at that, eh Nestle?
If cottonmouth tales away your sense of taste, then why does everything taste so much better after a big doob?
Free Martian Whores!
I thought it was psychological effects? Being molested by federal agents, being treated like a terrorist, being herded like cattle at a slaughterhouse, mind numbing boredom waiting around, late of course, sounds like a fun date, what could possibly go wrong? Doesn't everyone else look forward to a full body cavity search before a gourmet meal?
Also only a tiny fraction of my travel, on ground or in airplane is for fun. Mostly its because I have to meet someone at work, training, fix something, somebody far away croaked, etc. Its almost never involves good news. Flying home because granny died last night is going to kind of ruin the dining experience regardless what they do. Or traveling to the worlds most boring, tiring, and pointless meeting while in a bad mood ruins the dining experience. I have traveled for fun, its just that I make 5, maybe 10 business-related trips for each vacation.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Whenever I fly Singapore, Thai or other Asian airlines the food is fine. However, on Western airlines.......Delta, KLM, BA, etc, the food sucks. Different philosophies maybe?
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Sounds like a lot of lame excuses for cheap tasteless food. Why is it that, whenever I take my own sandwich onboard, it tastes just fine?
I was just about to post the same thought. I remember the show, it was about a "crazy" TV Chef Personality trying to tackle places where food was notoriously bad.
Chef in question - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heston_Blumenthal
Show in question - http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.channel4.com%2Fprogrammes%2Fhestons-mission-impossible&ei=Q4hwT8GrEsii8QPNhay_DQ&usg=AFQjCNFV9XA0VmmjP41FvOGX8fjKBTKZig
I can't find any links that go into detail about what the program found out, but this isn't a bad place to start: www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CEoQtwIwAw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.terminalu.com%2Ftravel-news%2Fheston-blumenthal-proves-that-british-airways-can-improve-inflight-food-standards%2F6728%2F&ei=ZYhwT83XNsr_8QPLmJ2_DQ&usg=AFQjCNGkMupkhlsjgyVT2VRbmVFHAThPGw
All of the reasons in the summary are gone over - dried out senses, pressurised environments etc. except Heston went a step further and discovered that certain flavours aren't as affected by the different atmosphere. This show aired over a year ago.
Old news indeed.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Yes, and? This has been known for many years. Most airlines have special kitchens for their chefs to work in which artificially create in-flight atmosphere (pressure, humidity, etc.) so the chefs can taste what their food is like to the passengers.
I don't see any recent breakthroughs mentioned. So what the heck is this blogging nonsense doing on the frontpage?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The cabin is pressurized to 8,000 feet but with very dry air from outside. Humidifying the air would require carrying many extra gallons (hundreds?) of fresh water.
Have gnu, will travel.
Nothing tastes better. I'm not entirely sure why. But it's never quite as good back on the ground.
The tastebud stuff sound like pathetic excuses..
Because your appetite is regulated by cannabinoid neurotransmitters. Your brains can't tell the difference between the external cannabinoids (from your doob) and the ones it produces itself. Maybe they should start handing out space muffins on board :)
The 787 will have a more humid cabin. Will be interested to see if it makes a difference in the food.
For flights up to about 5 hours, most do indeed go without as these flights only offer a drink and your choice of overpriced candy bars. After that, people start to get antsy for some free meal of some sort (more so if they have some form of diabetes which you can be sure makes up a good sized contingent on any flight these days.) Why the airlines don't just offer meals that are intended to be cold (a nice chicken salad, a cold-cut sub sandwich, wrap, etc.) is beyond me.
When I travel, I just buy one of these from the dozen or so places in any airport that vends them and don't worry about what (if anything) is going to be served in flight. The airlines really should just forgo any hot meal kind of options completely and just give food vouchers at the gate for any flight that included a meal, and the passengers can just go get the food they actually want and bring it with them.
I live at 6500 ft.
Food tastes great!
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
If you use a heat exchanger to warm incoming air with outgoing air, it should be possible to recover and reuse the moisture.
Alternatively, you could just give up and give people military rations.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
...just give up and give people military rations.
One MRE should be enough to frighten the entire plane into fasting.
Honestly the new MREs aren't that bad. I've had worse airline meals.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
I see a bunch of posts stating:
The summary (not even the article!) makes it clear it's more than just the altitude/pressure. There's cabin humidity, for starters.
cabin humidity levels kept low by design
As well as all the packaging, preprocessing, etc., that goes into the cabin food.
Southwest does have some good Honey Roasted Peanuts.
Careful. They were processed in a facility that processes nuts.
Yup. It's bullshit.
1. Food in the business cabins still tastes how it should.
2. Food I've taken on board still tastes good,
3. The food budget per meal, per seat in economy is around $1-$2
1 and 2 put the lie to the premise, 3 is just the reason why. Price competition has driven airlines to cut every last cent they can. Me, I'd rather have an option to pay ten bucks more for my ticket and not get fed recycled rat-shit.
Between ROTC and 10 years in the Guard I've experienced the last four generations of MRE. The late 80's / early 90's version was worthy of all the disdain ever heaped upon them. They've gotten progressively better though. Other than a residual slight metallic tang to the meat, current generation MRE's are by and large no worse than most fast food (which is not to say that they're good, just not nearly as awful). The vegetarian one's are actually better IMO, the lack of meat completely removes the metallic taste and they always have fruit and granola bars as extras. The fruit is no worse than any canned fruit and the granola bars don't suffer from the heat as much as a lot of snacks.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you want a regular diet of the things; but living on them for a couple of days isn't unpleasant anymore. No worse than a travel day where you're forced to eat more fast food than you'd like.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
Oh, and they come with chemical heater now. Activate the heater with a quarter cup or so of water and no more cold/frozen food. The second and third generation had the heaters as an optional extra item the unit could get along with the MRE; but now they're packed inside the bag. There's less chance of a screw-up or sadistic supply sergeant that way.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
The vast majority of air "leaks" out through cabin pressurization valves near the back of the plane - it's designed that way since air has to be let out in order to let fresh air in (as well as to not keep the cabin at the same altitude as the departing airport - to climb up to 8000' requires releasing air).
Correct. The pressurized air for the cabin comes from the jet engine's bleed air (located after the compressor section). It's quite warm because of the compression (from -30-50C to +50-60C), so it needs to be cooled down via air conditioners to levels humans would prefer.
It's also one reason (among many) to keep the cabin at 8000' and why air quality has declined - using the bleed air saps power from the engine.
That's correct in the vast majority of cases. The 787 being an exception, using dedicated electrically driven air compressors instead of bleed air to supply the cabin.
The problem with outside air at 35K feet is that it is cold. So its absolute humidity is very low. Warming it up lowers its relative humidity even lower.
Have gnu, will travel.
I, for one, have eaten quite well on an airplane. I flew Turkish Air to Istanbul and Beijing, and I must say their food is awesome. The Chinese airliner I flew afterwards also had decent food.
Good food on an airplane isn’t an impossible feat. My taste buds work just fine on all altitudes I’ve tried them on. Food quality primarily depends on how little the airliner is willing to spend on it.
Ignore this signature. By order.
I had the happy accident of being placed in First Class and had a meal there. It tasted great -- not by comparison, but it tasted great all on its own.
The food in coach tastes like crap because it tastes that way at any altitude.
You're correct. The recommended daily intake of sodium is 2300 mg (2.3 grams). 1.5g is about 65% of that. Unless you are on a low-sodium diet, it is not completely outrageous for a single meal on a rare occasion, so long as you typically watch the amount of salt you'd consume in your other meals. The problem is that nobody does. Typical salt intake is ~5 grams per day.
and below the 14,000 where you can't breath,
This is incorrect. People in good health can breathe just fine at 14,000'. You will definitely feel more aerobically challenged for a given level of exertion. Many unacclimatized people will experience mild altitude sickness (headache), and a few will get sick enough that they need to descend immediately for safety.
People routinely summit Kilimanjaro, which is 19,000', without supplementary oxygen -- in fact, I've never heard of anyone using oxygen at that altitude. The altitude where it's really impossible to breathe, even if you're healthy and thoroughly acclimatized, is more like 25,000' to 29,000' (the top of Everest). Some people do summit Everest without oxygen.
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