Mile-high meals may be tastier than you think: Engine noise on planes diminishes our sense of taste



Scientists have worked out why airline meals taste so bad - and the chef isn't to blame.



Research shows that the sort of noise we are subjected to inside aircraft cabin affects our taste buds, reducing our sense of saltiness and sweetness - and increasing crunchiness.

The finding could explain why even the most tempting-smelling in-flight meals taste bland and have the texture of cardboard.

Bland and tasteless: Researchers found that when loud white noise was played, participants had a less acute sense of the sweetness and saltiness of foods

'There's a general opinion that aeroplane foods aren't fantastic,' said Andy Woods, a researcher from Unilever's laboratories and the University of Manchester.

'I'm sure airlines do their best - and given that, we wondered if there are other reasons why the food would not be so good. One thought was perhaps the background noise has some impact.



'Nasa gives their space explorers very strong-tasting foods, because for some reason they can't taste food that strongly - again, perhaps it's the background noise'

'Nasa gives their space explorers very strong-tasting foods, because for some reason they can't taste food that strongly - again, perhaps it's the background noise.

'There was no previous research on this, so we went about seeing if the hunch was correct.'

To test the theory, 48 diners were blindfolded and fed sweet foods such as biscuits or salty ones such as crisps, while listening to silence or noise through headphones.

Each volunteer rated the foods for flavour and said how much they liked them.

Background noise led to the foods being rated less salty or sweet. They were also perceived as more crunchy, the journal Food Quality and Preference reports.

Dr Woods told BBC News: 'The evidence points to this effect being down to where your attention lies - if the background noise is loud it might draw your attention to that, away from the food.'

This means that when flying, the 'white noise' of the engines could be putting us of our food.

The contrast between the pleasure of eating and the stress of listening to the various onboard sounds may also contribute to passengers losing their sense of taste.

The study also showed, perhaps less surprisingly, that more pleasant sounds whet the appetite, perhaps explaining why many restaurants play 'mood music'.

Researcher Dr Ellen Poliakoff said: 'If you are enjoying the music you are listening to, it may affect the enjoyment of the food you are eating.'

Chefs are also starting the exploit the link between sound and appetite, with Heston Blumenthal providing iPods that play the sounds of waves breaking on a beach to diners who order a seafood dish called Sounds of the Sea.



