Japanese researchers have proposed a diet that provides the maximum nutrition for the smallest amount of resources for astronauts living for extended periods on Mars. The problem? The smell.
Of the seven 'wonder' foods suggested, Azolla or mosquito fern is incredibly nutritious but the smell, the researchers noted, "might cause a problem of acceptance as food material." They go on to say that boiling it makes the smell tolerable, but by then my appetite was already ruined.
The part that inspired me was the connection with being responsible crew members of Spaceship Earth:
For that maybe I would eat boiled Azolla stew now and again...
The other six wonder foods on the list were rice, soybeans, sweat potato, an undefined green-yellow vegetable, silkworm pupa (more commonly found in Asian diets...), and a fish called loach.
Rice, Azolla, and loach could be grown together in a bio-regenerative life support system, allowing you to clean your air and water while raising crops and fish together hydroponically. Azolla is again attractive because it is a nitrogen fixer- which means it can pull nitrogen out of the air and feed it to the rice, obviating the need for nitrogen fertilizer.
It is a great concept and maybe something to actually use on Earth first to get good at-- especially with a more North American take on the inclusion of insects.
Proposed space food suffers from 'smell' problem [New Scientists Blogs]
Azolla as component of space diet during habitation on Mars [ScienceDirect]
See Also:
- Koreans Develop Space-Safe Kimchi For First Astronaut
- NASA's In Your Frozen Chicken
- Liveblog on The Future of the Global Food System
- Vertical Farming: Apple Store Meets Greenhouse Meets Skyscraper
Photo courtesy Kurt Stueber*
