i dont actually understand why airline food is so bad i mean i get that you have to feed a fuck ton of people with not a lot of room for a full kitchen but shit i dont really like eating pig slop from a paper cup

its because you're like 20000 feet in the air so your sense of smell gets dulled
does their sense of cooking get dulled too??? cant even make a bag of cheezits work these guys are useless

those airplane cookies unironically go hard outside of the airplane

cause of the elevation and air pressure

its a combination of lower pressure and extremely dry air that causes our olfactory senses not to work as well! if you can think to the last time you had a cold, eating food in an environment with different air pressure tastes almost the same as it would when your olfactory receptors are struggling both with nasal and sinus inflammation as well as having to try and taste or smell around the extra mucus in your snoot too. if you ate airline food on the ground, you probably would be kind of grossed out because they add extra sugar and salt to try and keep the flavors appealing!

oh and i forgot to add that due to the logistical nightmare that would be air travel food poisoning, most food also suffers from being overcooked, which contributes to dryness and less appealing texture!
holy fucking genius ok that makes a lot of sense actually i will stop harping on the chefs

they are trying their best! its best to consider it something of an exercise in textured eating rather than flavor. also if you can get chocolate before you go on a flight, that is one of the few foods that tends to hold up! of course thats not something i can indulge in anymore, heheh.