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Tomato juice is one of the most popular drinks served by flight attendants, yet how often do you see someone drinking the red beverage with two feet planted firmly on the ground? For years, airlines have been baffled at the demand for tomato juice, and why such an odd drink is so satisfying 35,000 feet up.
What’s even more perplexing is that airplane food generally tastes incredibly bland. It’s like the food wasn’t prepared with any salt, spice, or flavor whatsoever. So, why would tomato juice taste better while other foods taste worse? It might sound crazy, but is it possible our taste buds get so bent out of shape during a flight that it changes our perception of tastes?
To find out, we need a quick lesson on how we taste our food.
Most of us know that we have five basic tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. Umami is often the least recognized, but can be described as savory or meaty. Think of foods like soy sauce, mushrooms, and gravies. These five tastes all have dedicated receptors in our mouth that can communicate with our brain while we’re eating.
Airplane food is incredibly bland. It’s like the food wasn’t prepared with any salt, spice, or flavor whatsoever. So why does tomato juice taste better while other foods taste worse?
For us to detect a taste, molecules from the food must land on our taste buds (or papillae if you want to be fancy).
Essentially, a tastant binds to its specialized receptor, sort of like a lock and key. The receptor is connected to a nerve ending that sends a signal to the brain, allowing us to differentiate the various tastes we’re experiencing.
Flavor is a bit more complex than taste because it’s a combination of our sense of smell and taste. In addition to the taste receptors in the mouth, our nose also has receptors for aromas.
As we eat, odorants are released from the food into the air. These molecules find their way into our nasal cavity, and bind to receptors there. In fact, scientists now…
