Airplane food is notorious for being awful and there are few reasons it probably won’t get any better. For one thing, it’s prepared hours before the flight in huge quantities, so it’s just not fresh. And things just taste differently at high altitudes. The cabin pressure, dry cabin air, and loud engine noise all contribute to us not being able to taste and smell food and drinks as well on a plane, according to Professor Charles Spence.
But the good news is there are things we can do to improve the mile-high meal:
- Spence recommends wearing a pair of noise-canceling headphones for an easy way to make your food taste better on a flight
- Listening to music can help, too. Research shows that “soundscapes that contain lots of tinkling, high-pitched notes can actually accentuate our perception of sweetness by 10%.”
- According to Spence, pausing your in-flight movie can help you enjoy your meal more.
- If you want to enjoy a glass of vino on the plane, some choices are better. Turns out, wines grown at a high altitude, like a Malbec from Mendoza in Argentina, are better rated in the air than on the ground.
- They say dealing with your dry nasal passages by irrigating them can also help you taste more flavor in your airplane meal, but it could also increase your ability to smell other things on the plane. So you might want to skip that one so you don’t suffer for hours from smelling the stinky guy behind you with the bad B.O.
Source: The Telegraph