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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.
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)
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
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 tastebud stuff sound like pathetic excuses..
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.
Southwest does have some good Honey Roasted Peanuts.
Careful. They were processed in a facility that processes nuts.
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.
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.