Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff Works. Hey, brain stuff, Lauren, vocal bomb Here. The next time your taste buds revolt at the first bite of an in flight meal, try holding your tongue. Not literally, of course, but instead of grousing about airlines and the food they serve. The blame for poor tasting fair may rest squarely in your mouth and the way your senses respond to the noise, pressure, and altitude associated with air travel. It's a lesson, Julia
Buckley learned firsthand. A United Kingdom based travel journalist and frequent transatlantic flyer, Buckley was selected by British Airways to help choose a new onboard t She told us via email, I was one of the judges for the final stage when it was down to three potential teas on a flight. We blind tasted four teas at various stages of the flight. I was convinced I was selecting the same one throughout is my favorite, but actually my choices were changing with
every tasting. Later, Buckley learned that the t should liked best on the ground had been the one that became unbearably acidic halfway through the flight. She was surprised and a little mortified, she said, I hadn't realized how much taste changes in the air. The two teas that felt overpowering on the ground were the most palatable in the air within an hour of the flight, whereas the most delicate one suddenly lost its flavor and brought the acidity
to the forefront. It's a phenomenon. Researchers at Cornell University witnessed as they gaged the reactions of forty eight people to flavors under different conditions. They gave the participants liquids designed to mimic one of our five taste sensations sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami or savory. As participants sampled the solutions, they did so under two different scenarios, first in silence, and second while listening to the sound of an eighty five
decipel jet engine. The results showed the participants sense of salty, sour, and bitter remained about the same whether or not conditions were noisy. However, these same in flight sounds dulled sweet tastes and enhanced umami tastes like tomato juice, which may explain why tomato juice and bloody mary cocktails are so popular. At altitude. By the way, alcoholic drinks don't actually become more potent on planes, but they can feel that way
because altitude restricts your body's oxygen intake. It seems that multiple sensory properties of our environment can change how we perceive food and drink, and it isn't only air travel that can have an effect. Shanty Celibert, al Los Angeles based senior writer for Modern Hiker, spent several weeks at ten thousand feet that's about three thousand meters above sea level as she traversed the Pacific Crest Trail. She told us, as I crept higher and higher, I noticed my appetite
changed drastically. I found my palate swaying to the extremes. I craved boatloads of salt and the sugariest sweets I could find. These yearnings for salty and intensely sweet flavors fall right in line with the findings at Germany's frown Hoffer Institute for Building Physics. At an airline's request, the institute set out to study passenger perceptions of sweetness and saltiness and discovered that both dropped by up to thirty
percent during arid simulated flight conditions. It's something to keep in mind the next time you fly and opt for a promising tomato based entree and beverage. Today's episode was written by Laurie L. Dove and produced by Tristan McNeil. For more on this and lots of other savory topics, visit our home planet, how stuff Works dot com