What you should eat, drink and avoid when flying, according to experts

The cabin lights dim. The drink cart rattles down the aisle. You pull out your tray table and suddenly, inexplicably, you’re craving tomato juice.

There’s a reason for that. At cruising altitude, your palate changes in ways that make certain foods and drinks taste dramatically better or worse than they do on the ground. Understanding why that happens can transform your in-flight meal from something you endure into something you might actually enjoy. The science is surprisingly straightforward, and the fixes are even simpler.

Dr. Gary Pickering, a professor of biological sciences and researcher at Brock University’s Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute in St. Catharines , Ont., has studied how the cabin environment rewires the way we sense f lavou