New research suggests that airplane noise could affect how food tastes, NDTV reported.

Researchers at Cornell University found that the sense of taste is compromised in an environment of loud noise.

"Our study confirmed that in an environment of loud noise, our sense of taste is compromised. Interestingly, this was specific to sweet and umami tastes, with sweet taste inhibited and umami taste significantly enhanced," Robin Dando, assistant professor of food science, said in a statement. "The multisensory properties of the environment where we consume our food can alter our perception of the foods we eat."

Previous studies have shown that "air pressure and air quality in a plane cabin can have a dulling effect on taste buds," Yahoo Health reported.

This has a lot to do with the nerves between the tongue and the brain.

"This nerve happens to pass right across the middle ear, in contact with the eardrum,"Dando told Yahoo Health. "Nerves are very sensitive, so this led me to wonder whether the signal was in some way affected when under conditions of loud noise. A pretty interesting example of this is an airplane cabin, interesting as people always complain about the quality of the food on airlines."

Airlines acknowledge the phenomenon. German airline Lufthansa had noticed that passengers were consuming as much tomato juice as beer. The airline commissioned a private study released last fall that showed cabin pressure enhanced tomato juice taste.

"The multisensory nature of what we consider 'flavor' is undoubtedly underpinned by complex central and peripheral interactions," Dando said. "Our results characterize a novel sensory interaction, with intriguing implications for the effect of the environment in which we consume food."

The findings are detailed in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.