手機(jī)版
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(jī)餐”難吃的謎底終于揭曉了，原來(lái)我們不能怪罪于廚師的廚藝，“噪音”才是我們總是覺(jué)得飛機(jī)上的食物不好吃的真正原因。科學(xué)家分析，機(jī)艙內(nèi)的高分貝噪音影響了我們的味覺(jué)器官“味蕾”，同時(shí)降低了我們對(duì)甜味以及鹽度的判斷。
這項(xiàng)研究結(jié)果解釋了為什么即使飛機(jī)上的食物色、香俱全，我們也始終感受不到食物的美味，覺(jué)得飛機(jī)餐“味如嚼蠟”。
研究者說(shuō)，關(guān)于飛機(jī)餐難吃的事實(shí)已經(jīng)得到了廣泛的認(rèn)同，一方面，我的確相信機(jī)務(wù)人員已經(jīng)盡力了，他們盡可能得滿足乘客味覺(jué)上的需要。但是為什么飛機(jī)餐還是這么難吃呢？我們進(jìn)行了一項(xiàng)實(shí)驗(yàn)后才認(rèn)定其實(shí)是飛機(jī)上的噪音影響了我們的食欲。
因?yàn)橹皼](méi)有任何關(guān)于“飛機(jī)餐”的實(shí)驗(yàn)，這只是我們的猜想，所以我們?yōu)榇诉M(jìn)行了一項(xiàng)測(cè)試，在測(cè)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(shí)讓他們的聽覺(jué)處于舒服的狀態(tài)，讓他們聽聽音樂(lè)或者保持絕對(duì)安靜。
每一位就餐者都覺(jué)得食物很好吃并表示他們很喜歡。原來(lái)人們嘗試食物的時(shí)候，背景聲音如果太大聲則會(huì)影響人們的食欲。
