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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Travel
Shuk Yee Tsang & Milo Boyd

Man who 'loves airplane food' travels the world and reviews in-flight meals

A man has travelled four million miles visiting every country in the world and documenting his plane food meals as he goes.

James Asquith has been travelling for 15 years and takes to social media to review his different in-flight feasts.

The 33-year-old is a frequent flier in the extreme and has taken more than 2,000 flights.

He has been able to pursue his love of whizzing around at 30,000 feet by launching his own travel business Holiday Swap, where you can rent out your house or exchange the property for a period.

James explained: "I love airplane food, and by almost living on planes you get used to it.

James has taken more than 2,000 flights (James Asquith/ CATERS NEWS)

“I have to say the Japanese meals and wagyu steaks on the Japanese airlines of ANA and Japan Airlines have been the best.

"The strangest meal I have had was a leaf with some sauce on. It was rather plain - I think that was on Sudan Airways.

“I won’t fly private because I don’t find it responsible, I actually prefer commercial - it reminds me of where I came from, and I simply love the buzz of people around me."

While continuing to regularly use a high emissions form of transport for non-essential purposes, James says he is concerned about the environment.

"I’m really serious about offsetting the carbon with this as well," he said.

The 33-year-old has visited every country in the world (James Asquith/ CATERS NEWS)
He says he tries to offset emissions from his flights (James Asquith/ CATERS NEWS)

"When I first travelled when I was 18-24 years old, I was largely backpacking and living on a shoestring.

"Now, after working for quite a few years, things have changed for me in a really good way, but Holiday Swap is what was missing for me when I travelled.

"There was no such thing as sponsored posts or travel so I’m proud a lot of hard work paid off. I worked all sorts of jobs even as early as 12-years-old and squirrelled away every penny I could.

"I aimed to buy a house, but I guess that all changed at 18 when I discovered solo travel.

"I saved money before travelling and worked along the way to pay to travel on a shoestring, so I really immersed myself in the culture, the food and the people."

While James may be enthusiastic about plane food, maybe passengers have had poor experiences of tucking into dinner while on a commercial jet.

Researchers believe that the noise on aircraft may affect people's ability to enjoy a meal.

Eating is a multi-sensory experience and exposure to loud noise affects people's ratings of food, researchers claim.

Psychologists in the US studied the influence of noise during a flight on the five basic tastes, with a total of 48 participants rating sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami solutions on a scale from 'barely detectable' to 'strongest imaginable'.

Each taste was tested with three concentration levels and at different noise levels ranging from normal room noise to 85 decibels.

Noise was blasted out for 30 minutes prior to testing while participants read or studied, and continued to play during testing.

Noise level had no influence on intensity ratings for salty, bitter, and sour tastes, but sweet foods tasted less intense but more intense for umami.

Study co-author Kimberly Yan, of Cornell University in New York state, said: "These results suggest that enjoyment of airline food may be rated consistently lower than would be expected because the loud ambient noise dampens perception of pleasurable sweet flavours.

"However, the results also suggest that this could be ameliorated by focusing on the sought-after taste quality of umami, which was not just immune to the effects of loud noise, but enhanced by it."

Recently a Ryanair customer endured a truly torrid plane dish when she ordered a lasagne and received what she described as the "soggiest, saddest, greyest-looking mush".

Sarah Wilson was drawn into ordering the meal on the flight from Vienna to Bristol earlier this month after spotting delicious-looking images of the £5.20 vegan meal on the menu.

The glossy brochure features a photograph of a golden-topped lasagne with melted cheese and filled with seasoned vegetables.

However the charity worker from Bideford, North Devon was left disappointed after ordering the lasagne, only for the reality to look different to the picture.

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