Odd Facts About The Food Served On Airplanes

While airline food is not that tasty and it actually irritates the hell out of the passengers on their long haul flight, there actually goes a lot in making them. While the food might taste bland, there is actually a ton of amazing facts when it comes to service of food and its making is considered.

All of you might have questions like; why is it so bland and strange? Why does the airline not serve good food?

To answer these and many more questions along with some get things you did not know about airplane food, we give to our readers a few odd facts about the food served on airplanes.

Science Proved That Airplane Food Tastes Worse

According to many studies it has been revealed that the low pressure in the enclosed cabins can actually alter the sensation of the taste buds of human tongue. This especially happens for the sweet and salty foods. The humanity levels in the airplanes are also kept low which also hinders a passenger’s ability to taste the food. In addition to these the loud engines also greatly diminish the sense of taste. All of these factors combined only leave an average human onboard a flying airplane with 30 percent of their tongue sensitivity.

Many airlines have tried to tackle this problem by making the salty food saltier and sweet foods sweeter, but in the end, the food just does not taste the same as it does on the ground.

Food Is Made On The Ground

As a part of strict security rules, each and every meal that is served on an airplane is to be made at the ground. Nothing must be prepared onboard an airplane. This ultimately means that the food served on the airplane is cooked, packed, frozen and reheated before it ever is served to a passenger on board an airplane.

By no means does this whole procedure make the food taste better; instead it is a necessity. Open flames onboard a flying airplane are a great security hazard.

Food Used To Be Cooked On Planes

Prior to then, the strict rules of air safety were implemented for all the airlines in the world, the air travel used to be completely different from the yester years. People were allowed to smoke onboard a flying airplane as well as the food to be cooked on an airplane. Actually, back in the 50s and 60s, many of the renowned airlines had their own special chefs’ onboard airplanes for in-flight cooking.

No Microwaves Are Kept Onboard

While most of you might think that the airplane food is heated in a microwave, you will never actually find even one microwave onboard an airplane. The reason for the absence of both microwaves as well as the conventional ones is the same security reasons that prohibit the cooking of meals on a plane.

The food is actually heated onboard by the Dry-Air Convection Ovens. While they do the job of heating the food, they still contribute to make the meals dry and taste bland.

Even to this day, culinary scientists are doing their utmost to come up with ways to prevent the food from losing its taste after its reheated. Many airlines have incorporated the use of steaming to keep the foods fresh by letting them have moisture.

Majority Of In-Flight Meals Are Thrown Away

Back in 2016, a survey revealed that approximately 2300,000 tons of trash was accumulated from airlines across the globe. To make up the huge portion of this airplane waste, most of it was the extra meals. All of this food is disposed off in two widely used ways; either it is incinerated or is dumped in the landfills.

While many airlines have now adopted the habit of donating their unused blankets to homeless shelters, the left over meals are a different story in this regard. The strict regulations of the International Agriculture prohibit the airlines to actually donate their leftover meals to any form of charity.

Many airlines are trying to come up with ways to make the air travel eco-friendly as they are recycling the waste of airplanes. However, for the extra food issue, they are still trying to figure out ways.

Lufthansa Tests Their Meals In Hyperbaric Chambers

An advanced Hyperbaric Chamber is present in the city of Germany; Munich. The purpose behind creating this device is only one and that is to taste-test the in-flight meals before they are served on the Lufthansa flights. While many of you might think that isn’t it a little over the top to test out the food in such a way? Well, it is, but it still is the only way to create a simulation for the pressurized environments onboard a flying airplane.

Lufthansa Airlines actually uses this technology to find out the difference between the taste of food on the ground and in the sky. By comparing the two different situations, they can actually help the cooks to make more tasty foods for their flights.

While all the other airlines are still to use this ingenious way of testing he food for their flights, it is still an effective solution.

Employees Who Steal Leftovers Can Suffer Serous Punishment

It might not seem like that big of a deal if a flight attendant actually is trying to take one or two meals with her home. Yes there isn’t any harm in that but some airlines have actually made some strict rules regarding the leftover meals from their flights. Workers of such airlines, if are caught with the leftover foods, they are immediately fired on the spot. As for the ground workers of these airlines, if they are found in possession of the mini alcohol bottles of the airplane; they are often charged with smuggling.

These strict rules have been placed in order to eliminate any chance of the foreign materials being entered in another country through air travel.

Airline Food Critic

While there might not be a Yelp or an official in-flight meal critic, one person has actually taken it as a self duty to review the food menu of every airline in the world that he has traveled so far. The name of this man is Nik Loukas who started his journey of documenting the in-flight meals back in 2012.