Posted on 11/11/2011 11:58:49 AM PST by Olog-hai
Nearly a quarter of people who drink tomato juice while flying say they only like it while sitting in a plane. Why? A German scientist has discovered the red stuff actually does taste different at high altitudes.
A survey conducted for the www.lastminute.de holiday booking website showed that 23 percent of those who order tomato juice during a flight told pollsters it was, “because I suddenly like the taste when in a plane”, but that they would never drink it on the ground. …
Andrea Burdack-Freitag, an aroma chemist at the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics in Holzkirchen, Bavaria, has conducted experiments for Lufthansa to help them develop in-flight menus. “In the air, food and drink tastes as it does when we have a cold,” she said in a statement. The reduced pressure in a plane cabin when it is in the air affects the way in which tastes are experienced, she said. Her work takes place in a low-pressure chamber containing a section of a plane where test subjects eat experimental recipes under simulated flying conditions.
Burdack-Freitag has already confirmed that salt is much less effective at altitude—up to 30 percent, according to her tests. Sugar is also less intensely perceived—to the tune of 30 percent. Yet fruity aromas and acidic tastes remain pretty stable at reduced pressure. …
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Interesting. I, also, usually drink tomato juice while flying, and rarely at other times.
I don’t think it’s because I suddenly like the taste better (I never paid attention to how location affects taste). But most of the drinks offered are carbonated sodas, which I can’t stand. And the other juices offered are usually orange or apple, neither of which appeal to me. So, by process of elimination, I end up with tomato juice.
Know what’s good on a plane? Bloody Mary mix with lemon on ice, hold the vodka (if too early in the a.m.).
Wine seems to taste better at high altitude, too. I don’t know why, just that it does.
Scent.
Tomatoes (and potatoes) were developed in the ?Andes at high altitude in the mountains. The local flora and fauna had to be attracted to them in order to spread the seeds around.
“I hear the sex is better, too.”
Yeah, but it does not count if you have an autopilot.
That’s interesting. I always get a craving for a bloody mary when I fly.
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