Travel
Study: This is the reason airplane food tastes awful
A flight stewardess is seen serving drinks and snacks on board the Air Asia Boeing 737-300 flight from Bangkok to Phuket on February 25, 2004 in Bangkok, Thailand. (Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)
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Airplane food has been the butt of jokes for so long, the jokes have become the butt of jokes.
But now, researchers at Cornell University say they have found out why -- and it might seem a bit strange.
Airplanes are actually so loud that it affects the way you taste food. Sweet foods suffer the most; the noise of the airplane makes it harder to taste sweet things.
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But savory foods that rely on the "umami" flavor thrive, the researchers say. This explains why tomato juice is so popular on planes; it relies heavily on umami.
RoadWarriorVoices reports that salty, bitter and sour foods were unaffected.
The chorda tympani nerve may be to blame -- it stretches from your taste buds past your ear to the brain.
