There is an opinion that while flying on an airplane, tomato juice acquires a more pronounced taste, so people drink it more often on board than in ordinary life. We decided to check whether scientific data supports this.

About exceptional popularity tomato juice on commercial flights write numerous Media, passengers' love for him is discussed on websites about travel And tourism, A Also on gastronomic resources. Flight attendants also talk about the demand for this drink among passengers. S7 airline flight attendant Yulia Mikheeva in an interview with The Village reports, that “tomato juice is ordered probably 30 percent more often than other juices, and it runs out the fastest. That’s why they load more of it on board: sometimes for every ten packs of apple and orange we take 15 tomato.” However, the flight attendant notes, the love for tomato juice can hardly be considered absolute: “When flying to the east, passengers prefer apple and orange juice. I can’t explain what this is connected with. In Europe, to the West, across Russia, tomato is the leader.” The popularity of tomato juice as an important part of the on-board menu confirmed scandal, flared up in 2018, the American airline United Airlines decided to remove the drink from the menu, and this caused indignation among passengers. As a result, tomato juice is on the menu had to leave.

Until the 1920s, tomato juice was not popular - there was no technology for its industrial production and no wide market. By words culinary historian and food researcher at the New School University in New York, Andrew Smith, the story of its emergence is as follows. Two brothers from Indiana rebuilt an ice cream machine to extract thick, rich-tasting juice from tomato pulp. Heinz and Campbell Soup liked the innovation, and they launched the first industrial line for the production of the drink. At the end of the Prohibition era, tomato juice became an integral ingredient in the popular Bloody Mary cocktail. In the 1930s, Amelia Earhart, American aviation pioneer and first woman to fly the Atlantic Ocean, in a radio interview statedthat tomato juice is her favorite drink on flights, which also replaces her food under these conditions.

German airline Lufthansa in 2010 noted, what a year its passengers drank 53,000 gallons (just over 200,000 L) of tomato juice, the only more popular drink on board was beer - its consumption for the year was 59,000 gallons (223,000 L). This observation prompted the airline to conduct a study to understand why tomato juice was so attractive to passengers. Scientists from the Fraunhofer Society for the Promotion of Applied Research, the largest European association of applied research institutes, were invited as experts. Fuselage of a decommissioned Airbus A310-200 aircraft became the basis of the flight simulator: scientists covered the windows with pictures similar to those seen by a passenger in flight, installed speakers that reproduced the noise of an airplane, installed special devices to make the seat shake, simulating a flight, and also created the same pressure, humidity and air temperature that is typical for flying in a passenger plane. Volunteers were invited to this salon and were offered various in-flight catering options. Perception of sour taste is “high” hasn't changed, but the sweet and salty tastes lost about 20% of their intensity. Dr. Andrea Burdak-Freitag compares the perception of tastes on an airplane to the sensations we experience when we have a cold. She explains: “At normal pressure, tomato juice tastes earthy and musty, but at reduced cabin pressure, volunteers describe it as more pleasant, fruity in aroma with a distinctly sweet and refreshing taste.”

The data obtained in the experiment are in good agreement with earlier studies. In 1997, scientists from the Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences in Delhi sent a group of volunteers lived for three weeks at an altitude of 3500 m. They were asked to drink solutions, to give them a particular taste, the researchers added glucose (responsible for the sweet taste), sodium chloride (salty), quinine sulfate (bitter) or citric acid (sour) to the liquid. While in high mountain areas, the experiment participants noted that sweet and salty tastes were perceived as less intense, that is, a higher concentration of the substance was needed in the aqueous solution so that the subject could determine what additive was present in it. At the same time, the volunteers’ perception of bitter and sour did not change. After their return to sea level, the perception of tastes returned to normal. This group was not given tomato juice in the experiment, but it can be assumed that it would have changed its taste at altitude.

In 2015, scientists from Cornell University (USA) became interested in changes in the perception of different tastes under the influence of external circumstances. Kimberly Yang and Robin Dando studied the influence of noise up to 85 dB - volunteers tried different foods, and at the same time noise of different volumes sounded in the headphones they were wearing. The perception of salty, sour and bitter tastes did not change during loud noise, sweet tastes were felt as less intense, that is, a higher concentration of sugar was required for the experiment participant to identify the product as sweet, and volunteers reported that the umami taste seemed 20% more pronounced to them. Umami, otherwise called meat, is the fifth taste, described in 1909 by Japanese chemist Kikunae Ikeda. We feel it due to glutamic acid and some ribonucleotides contained in food. Most expressed it is found in meat, some types of fish and seafood, seaweed, spinach, cheeses, mushrooms and tomatoes. Thus, when there is loud noise, tomato juice has a more pronounced and vibrant taste than if you drink it in silence.

Scientists also suggest that people prefer tomato juice on an airplane not only due to changes in physical conditions, but also due to psychology. Charles Spence, professor of experimental psychology at Oxford University, also got interested studying what people consume in the air and how they perceive “earthly” tastes there. He notes that on an airplane, in addition to pressure and noise, we are influenced by psychological factors: in particular, the stress associated with the flight, disruption of circadian rhythms when crossing a large number of time zones, limited choice on the menu, and even the fact that fellow passengers voice their choices in front of us. Ernst Derenthal, director of passenger catering at Lufthansa, shares the following observation: revealing thought from a psychologist: “Many people have a hard time making decisions. They realize that any minute the flight attendant will ask them what drink they would like, and they are lost. At this moment, they notice the tomato juice from the gentleman in the next row and automatically choose it.” Derenthal also adds that, according to his data, the taste of tomato juice helps some passengers cope with nausea during the flight, while others choose it because it dulls the feeling of hunger. Guardian columnist Sam Wolfson assumes, that not only physiology is at work, but also the rituals of some passengers - he compares the choice of tomato juice on an airplane with the tradition of eating popcorn at the cinema or hot dogs at a baseball game.

Thus, scientific research shows that at increased noise levels and at high altitudes, that is, at reduced pressure, the perception of individual tastes does change: sweet and salty are perceived as less intense, umami - more, but bitter and sour remain unchanged. At the same time, the researchers almost did not test the tomato juice itself, rich in umami taste, although, presumably, such a change in perception should have affected it as well. Psychologists also note that drinking tomato juice on an airplane takes on the characteristics of a ritual for a number of passengers, so people may choose it more often than others not only because of subjective sensations of taste, but because it is customary.

Cover image: Public Domain Pictures