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Scientists have worked out why airline meals taste so bad - and the chefisn't to blame.Research shows that the sort of noise we are subjected to inside aircraft cabin affects our taste buds, reducing our sense of saltiness and sweetness - and increasing crunchiness.
The finding could explain why even the most tempting-smelling in-flight meals taste bland and have the texture of cardboard.
'There's a general opinion that aeroplane foods aren't fantastic,' said Andy Woods, a researcher from Unilever's laboratories and the University of Manchester. '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.
'There was no previous research on this, so we went about seeing if the hunch was correct.' To test the theory, 48 diners were blindfolded and fed sweet foods such as biscuits or salty ones such as crisps, while listening to silence or noise through headphones.
Each volunteer rated the foods for flavour and said how much they liked them. Background noise led to the foods being rated less salty or sweet.
參考譯文：
“飛機餐”難吃的謎底終于揭曉了，原來我們不能怪罪于廚師的廚藝，“噪音”才是我們總是覺得飛機上的食物不好吃的真正原因。科學家分析，機艙內的高分貝噪音影響了我們的味覺器官“味蕾”，同時降低了我們對甜味以及鹽度的判斷。
這項研究結果解釋了為什么即使飛機上的食物色、香俱全，我們也始終感受不到食物的美味，覺得飛機餐“味如嚼蠟”。
研究者說，關于飛機餐難吃的事實已經得到了廣泛的認同，一方面，我的確相信機務人員已經盡力了，他們盡可能得滿足乘客味覺上的需要。但是為什么飛機餐還是這么難吃呢？我們進行了一項實驗后才認定其實是飛機上的噪音影響了我們的食欲。
因為之前沒有任何關于“飛機餐”的實驗，這只是我們的猜想，所以我們為此進行了一項測試，在測試中，48名就餐者被“蒙上雙眼”嘗試吃一些甜食：比如，餅干，或者薯片之類的，此時讓他們的聽覺處于舒服的狀態，讓他們聽聽音樂或者保持絕對安靜。
每一位就餐者都覺得食物很好吃并表示他們很喜歡。原來人們嘗試食物的時候，背景聲音如果太大聲則會影響人們的食欲。
