The next time a customer complains about an airline’s food, blame it on the noise of the flight.
Researchers at the University of Manchester and Unilever have discovered that passengers on a flight enjoy food in direct proportion to how much background noise there is – the worse the din, the worse the din-dins, if you like.
However, they also found that a racket whilst eating created the sensation that the food a passenger was eating was crunchier.
Blindfolded diners were asked to assess a plate of food whilst being subjected to white noise.
The loud noise reduced the sweetness and saltiness but enhanced the crunch factor.
The findings are published currently in the journal Food Quality and Preference.
Researcher Andy Woods told the BBC said: "There’s a general opinion that aeroplane foods aren’t fantastic. 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 thay 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."
Travelmole imagines those scientists involved in this study are so pleased they spent all that time getting their qualifications so that they can do such important work.
by Dinah Hatch
