Space Food Sticks

Space Food Sticks are snacks created for the Pillsbury Company in the late 1960s by the company's chief food technologist, Howard Bauman. Bauman was instrumental later in establishing the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points regulations used for food safety.

Bauman and his team were instrumental in creating the first solid food consumed by a NASA astronaut: small food cubes eaten by Scott Carpenter on board Aurora 7 in 1962. (John Glenn had consumed the fruit-flavored drink Tang in space three months earlier aboard the Friendship 7.) Space food cubes were followed by other space-friendly foods created by Pillsbury's food engineers, such as non-crumbly cake, relish that could be served in slices, and meat that needed no refrigeration.

In 1970, Pillsbury filed for a trademark for a "non-frozen balance energy snack in rod form containing nutritionally balanced amounts of carbohydrate, fat and protein" which they dubbed "Space Food Sticks". No basis for use of the term "nutritionally balanced" was provided.

Space food

Space food is a variety of food products, specially created and processed for consumption by astronauts in outer space. The food has specific requirements of providing balanced nutrition for individuals working in space, while being easy and safe to store, prepare and consume in the machinery-filled low gravity environments of manned spacecraft. In recent years, space food has been used by various nations engaging on space programs as a way to share and show off their cultural identity and facilitate intercultural communication. Although astronauts consume a wide variety of foods and beverages in space, the initial idea from The Man in Space Committee of the Space Science Board was to supply astronauts with a formula diet that would supply all the needed vitamins and nutrients.

Early history

For lunch on Vostok I (1961) Yuri Gagarin ate three 160 g toothpaste-type tubes, which contained two servings of puréed meat and one of chocolate sauce.

In August 1961, Soviet Cosmonaut Gherman Titov became the first human to experience space sickness on Vostok II; he holds the record for being the first person to vomit in space. According to Lane and Feeback, this event "heralded the need for space flight nutrition."