When I was 5 or 6 years old I was flying-sitting with my dad, as passengers, though he was an airline pilot, when we hit a pocket of "dead" air. Meals and drinks were just served. For what was at least 3-5 seconds all of the meal trays floated up, hovered and then thankfully relatively gently settled back down. My dad estimated we dropped 200 feet or so.

You've, technically, eaten food that was at zero gravity once for a short period of time.

Free-fall isn't zero-gravity, and anyone who observes the five-second rule has had a similar experience.

But by that argument neither is floating around in the ISS - you're still being accelerated by gravity, you're just in the fortunate position that you have enough velocity not to hit the earth.

If the colloquial term "zero gravity" applies to someone in the ISS, then it also applies to someone in a suddenly dropping aircraft.

If you're wanting to be so perfectionistic, five-second rule experiences is an apples to oranges comparison.

Yes it is, didn't Einstein say that gravity and acceleration are indistinguishable

"Zero-g" is different to "zero gravity". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weightlessness

The whole microgravity thing is pedantic, yes tidal forces exist, but at human scales they are not detectable.

In free-fall, the object is primarily being accelerated by gravity.

Yes but this is indistinguishable from the perspective of the falling object.

Relatively to the aircraft, the food was zero gravity though?

Hehe. Thanks for that perspective.

Pockets of ‘dead’ air are like the rogue waves of the aviation world. Rare but still happens once every few years.