These four delightful meals are still banned on the ISS

Have you heard the joke about the astronaut who received meals poisoning? In all probability not, and for good cause. It’s simply because this sort of an celebration has actually hardly ever occurred. To day, no astronaut has at any time gotten a foodstuff-borne ailment in area.

“At NASA, we in fact have a larger microbiological common when compared to most firms in the typical meals market,” suggests Xulei Wu, a NASA food stuff scientist and food system supervisor for the Global Room Station. In other words, NASA is a stickler about foods safety and storage when it arrives to place travel. 

To lower the risk of prospective sickness, all foods goods sent to the ISS will have to go through rigorous tests. If a foods fails the check, those people items are immediately thrown out of the jogging to turn out to be freeze-dried astronaut chow. In distinction, a thriving dish has to be both equally protected to eat, and able to give a great deal of diet in one serving. 

What’s inside an astronaut’s pantry?  

Even so an astronaut’s diet program, whilst certainly rigorous, isn’t necessarily a bland just one. 

On any offered working day, the International Space Station’s pantry-style dining setup has about 200 dishes an astronaut can select to take in. This freeze-dried buffet accounts for about 70-75 p.c of all the crew’s foods. The relaxation primarily arrives from crew-specific menu food—each astronaut is ready to make a type of culinary wishlist, and ask for selected foodstuff or drinks they want for the period of their mission. 

Even so, numerous of these fan favorites might not end up building it to the station in time for an astronaut’s remain, and in some circumstances, at all. From creation all the way to transportation, it takes quite a prolonged time for food items to get permitted and then loaded onto a rocket. Even then, once food items will make it into orbit, it could just take yrs ahead of it’s eaten by a peckish astronaut who has a craving for their preferred snack. 

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“We do not have a cargo car to go there each individual 7 days to ship what they want,” says Wu. “Therefore we have to pre-pack their foodstuff and load all the meals on cargo vehicles just before the crew member even launches.” 

As room journey gets to be even less of a distant fact, NASA inevitably wishes to do the job on bettering greater processing and packaging systems to make foodstuff final as very long as achievable. 

But transportation aside, there are some food items that are now banned on the house station—and the reasons why may possibly surprise you. 

Crumbs

In our residences, these smaller scraps are frequently classified as an annoyance and mess fairly than a actual challenge. But once you have remaining the basic safety of Earth’s orbit, the petite particles are thought of an occupational hazard. 

Crumbs are labeled International Object Particles (FOD), or any object that could lead to hurt to a craft or program. NASA suggests that these wayward particles could interfere with mission tools, be inhaled by crew users and in some instances, float into their eyes. 

But the good news is, this does not necessarily mean that astronauts must go without having crumbly food items (which is a good deal of food items) absolutely. For example, instead of standard bread products and solutions, like rolls or biscuits, that quickly crack apart and crumble, NASA’s foods lab says it’s been sending alternate choices to the station. 

“The tortilla is tremendous well-liked. It’s not actually a leavened bread, but it variety of serves a [similar] purpose,” says Wu. “It’s multipurpose, but tortillas really don’t crumble like most bread.” 

There are other food items that can develop huge crumbly messes way too, together with ice product. In microgravity, these dehydrated treats could turn out to be so brittle that they crack apart entirely, and send flavored flakes of these icy treats flying everywhere.

Collaborations amongst many teams and launch facilities have been acquiring other sorts of frozen treats like popsicles, which NASA hopes to send out to the ISS in the long term, claims Wu.  

Salt and Pepper

Sorry, there’s no conventional seasoning out in place. If you were to shake salt and pepper out in place, the grains would conclude up suspended in the air and be a related hazard to floating crumbs. To incorporate a minimal extra taste to foods, NASA experts have come up with a clever alternative: liquid spice. Instead of using salt-and-pepper shakers, astronauts pour on pre-designed salt and pepper methods like they would salad dressing or sauces. NASA’s foods lab dissolves the salt in water and the pepper in oil before sending off the liquid spice to place. 

Carbonated Drinks

Fizzy drinks are most likely the most unsafe of banned room food items, purely because the repercussions of drinking them nonetheless are not absolutely recognized. 

Carbonated drinks, by definition, have dissolved carbon dioxide. To get rid of this carbon dioxide, people today ordinarily stop up releasing the fuel with a burp, but according to NASA, carbonation and soda really don’t independent in microgravity. Without the need of gravity to push these bubbles out, immediately after swallowing, they could grow to be trapped in an astronaut’s digestive program and lead to adverse wellness consequences. 

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“In the microgravity setting, it could be a damp burp for the reason that the fuel and the liquid really do not tend to independent automatically,” she states. “It will be a soreness for absolutely sure.”

Even so, it’s tricky to pin down the specific wellness repercussions of bubbly drinks for the reason that NASA hasn’t been in a position to safely and securely perform tests on astronauts to see how carbonation in microgravity could possibly hurt the crew. 

Alcoholic beverages

Immediately after a lengthy day or for celebratory instances, astronauts just can’t whip up a cocktail or pop a bottle of champagne. But liquor is not just banned to make certain ISS crew users remain focused and notify. One of the primary explanations libations are not allowed on board is due to the fact it could possibly harm the Environmental Handle and Lifestyle Aid Procedure, or ECLSS.

One of ECLSS’ many duties is to provide clean air and cleanse water to the station by recycling urine, cabin condensation, and other squander goods. A essential component in liquor is ethanol, a compound which could also turn out to be incredibly volatile in house. Due to the fact the recycled h2o has rigorous purity standards, anything interfering with an astronaut’s all-natural digestive processes, which include further chemical contaminants like ethanol breathed out by crew, could set the complete lifetime technique in jeopardy. 

“That system is pretty delicate to ethanol,” claims Wu. “Therefore, if alcoholic beverages is currently being sent up [and consumed], that will evaporate and interfere with the system’s [ability] to regenerate air and h2o.”

But historically, although some astronauts undoubtedly have no problem going without the need of a consume for a couple months, there have been some scenarios of crew users sneaking their very own spirits aboard.

Correction (March 30, 2022): This story has been current to suitable a typo in the acronym for the Environmental Control and Lifestyle Assist Method (ECLSS).