Researchers suggest a surprising reason airplane food tastes terrible

There are a few foods that you can always count on to be consistently terrible, like gas station sushi, anything bought within 100 yards of a Ferris wheel and any meal that is served on an airplane. But according to scientists at Cornell University, that limp airline chicken might not be entirely to blame. In a recently published study, Robin Dando and Kimberly Yan, suggest that the loud inescapable cabin noise could alter the way we perceive – and taste – the foods we eat during flight.

Dando and his assistants had 48 study participants sample different taste solutions (which sounds even less appetizing than an American Airlines entree) that included concentrations of bitter, sour, salty, sweet and umami (or savory) flavors. The volunteers did these taste tests either in silence or while wearing headphones that played "broad spectrum auditory stimulation" of over 85 decibels, meant to mimic the sounds of an airplane cabin.

According to the volunteers, the salty, bitter and sour tastes did not change regardless of whether they were wearing their headphones or not. But when the ambient airplane noise was playing in their ears, they reported that the sweet taste was less sweet and the savory umami flavor was intensified. "In the broadest sense," John McQuaid wrote for Forbes, "these results suggest a meal eaten on an airplane will always taste different than expected, a bit off somehow."

Dando, who teaches a course called the Sensory Evaluation of Foods, suggests that these taste differences could be caused by overstimulating the chorda tympani nerve, which stretches from the taste buds and across the inner ear as it carries taste-related messages to the brain. If that's the case, then maybe that sound-blocking membrane for airline cabins will accidentally improve the taste of in-flight meals.

Until then, we're stuck with blah chicken and blech pasta. Bon appetit!