http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/crew/
exp1/menu.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_food
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ISSSpace
FoodOnATray.jpg
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/29/
science/space/29food.html?pagewanted
=all&_r=0
For my GVC report I decided to research the food on the International Space Station (ISS). You will learn what astronauts eat on the ISS. Is it like what we eat or different? Then I will talk all about how the astronauts cook in space. Last but not least, I will examine the similarities and differences between the food in space, and what we eat here on Earth.
Most of the food on the ISS is either freeze-dried or dehydrated, so in order to eat the food you must warm it up and or add water. The food in space is often freeze dried because it makes it easier to store and prepare. This makes space food like MREs (meals ready to eat). It also means it is easier to prepare food. In space there are many different types of food (it's theInternational Space Station after all). The meals in space need to be contained in plastic bags and containers so the it won't get all over the floor and walls. If you were an astronaut on the ISS the only utensils you have are a spoon and your hands. On board the space station there is a force that helps food stick to your spoon (it also makes liquids stick to your face). If you move too quickly with food it will fly onto the walls and floor. In space liquids are placed in plastic bags to prevent them from spilling, to drink your beverage (juice, milk, soda, water etc.) you have to add water and wait for your drink to be ready. The bags are designed to make it almost impossible to spill whatever is inside the bag.
You might wonder why astronauts don't just cook food like our parents do. Well think about this if you tried to make stir-fry it wouldn't work because boiling oil would be drifting into everybody's faces. That as you can probably imagine would cause a commotion among the astronauts. The reason you can't cook in space is because of the lower level of gravity causing things to drift away. It's the same way with dry crumbly things like bread and crackers. Once the crumbs from bread were making a huge mess of everything, this annoyed the astronauts. Then a Mexican astronaut had an idea, he thought that instead of bread they could eat tortillas. His idea greatly improved living conditions on the ISS by reducing grime and mold. A disadvantage of living on the ISS is not being able to have fresh produce or meat. So instead of fresh fruits and veggies the astronauts eat freeze dried produce, because if they brought produce on board it would rot or start to smell bad.
Pretty much the only difference between the food in space and what we eat here on Earth is the packaging. Food here is overly, almost ridiculously packaged, in space it's almost only what is necessary and a label telling what is in the package. On the ISS there is not a lot of waste because you can't just throw it all away, whereas here on Earth we throw away millions of tons of waste each year. On the ISS there is no refrigerator so astronauts can't save any food for later. That means they have to eat everything they make right after they make it.
In conclusion the food on the ISS is almost the same as the food here but is packaged differently, and almost all of it is either freeze dried or dehydrated. Also astronauts don't cook on the ISS because if they did boiling oil would fly into everyone's faces.