Canasnacks
|
When space shuttle Endeavour blasted
into orbit last month, Canadian emergency doc-cum-astronaut
Dave Williams was packing some healthy treats for his
fellow crew members.
One of his idiosyncratic space-based
snacks, the Canasnack, is a high-tech cookie developed
by the Canadian Space Agency and Agriculture Canada
especially for this mission; the other, caribou jerky,
is a traditional Northern food that just went intergalactic.
The Canasnacks are space-age oatmeal
sandwich cookies vacuum-sealed in a variety pack of
five Canadian flavours including maple, cranberry and
blueberry. According to the extensive literature on
the cookies released by Canadian government agencies,
the fat comes from Canadian-grown canola and each packet
contains a daily dose of prebiotics from Quebec-produced
lactulose.
The Canasnack fulfills two crucial
NASA requirements: shelf-life and crumblessness. Crumbs
are an astronaut's worst enemy (apparently that's why
astronauts eat tortillas instead of yeast bread), so
extra-terrestrial treats were designed to be bite-sized.
The caribou jerky is a nod to the
introduction this year of a Northern-food edition of
Canada's Food Guide. "That's great to help me get ready
to go do a spacewalk," said Dr Williams, who prefers
a variety from Rankin Inlet, speaking via satellite
uplink from space in August. "It's really nutritional
and really helps me get going."
Astronauts famously love swilling
Tang and playing Pac Man with floating M&Ms but
they always welcome something new. "It's a tough mission
and astronauts look forward to mealtime..." chief Canasnack
researcher Edward Farnworth of Agriculture Canada told
the Ottawa Citizen, "so NASA and the Canadian Space
Agency are trying to develop a more varied menu." —
Gillian Woodford
|
