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This salad made up of soybeans, poppy seeds, barley, kale, peanuts, sweet potato, and sunflower seeds could be the optimal meal for men on long-term space missions. (Image credit: Adapted from ACS Food Science & Technology 2023, DOI: 10.1021/acsfoodscitech.3c00396)
Mars-bound astronauts can now enjoy the ”perfect” space meal thanks to new research on nutritional, sustainable and tasty options for long-duration missions.
Meals for astronauts were specified considering the nutritional needs of men during long missions. The optimal meal turned out to be a vegetarian salad which represented the combination of essential nutrients and flavors, also including ingredients that can be grown in space and that offer micronutrients needed to compensate for the extra calories burned. According to the American Chemical Society, the suggested vegetarian salad includes soybeans, poppy seeds, barley, kale, peanuts, sweet potato and sunflower seeds, which was found to be the optimal meal for men on long-term space missions, according to the study.
“Astronauts in space burn more calories than humans on Earth and require extra micronutrients, such as calcium, to stay healthy during extended exposure to microgravity,” according to the American Chemical Society. “Additionally, future long-term missions will require growing food in a sustainable, circular way within the spacecraft or space colonies.”
The objective was to generate a space meal that not only met male astronauts’ health needs, but also tasted good and used fresh ingredients (compared to bland, prepackaged meals). Using a method called linear programming, the researchers assessed various combinations of fresh ingredients that would meet a male astronaut’s daily nutritional needs. They also factored in the sustainability of the ingredients — those that require less fertilizer, water, time and area to grow — and recyclability to avoid added waste from inedible parts of the food grown. The computer models balanced all of these variables in 10 different food combinations to identify the optimal space meal.
The researchers also aim to discover the best space recipes for female astronauts and expand the variety of ingredients included in their computational models.
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