New Snack Food between Space Walks

Obstacles scientists overcome to make life in space attainable are seemingly innumerable, and NASA believes food science students at Chapman University in California may have the right stuff. Those students, led by department chair and Institute of Food Technologists food science expert Anuradha Prakash, Ph.D., have developed an elusive super-nutritious pizza snack intended for the delectable use by astronauts on future missions.

As winners of this year's NASA food product development competition, these students and their product, Pizza Poppers, will be attending the 2003 IFT Annual Meeting + Food Expo(r), at Chicago's McCormick Place convention center, beginning July 13.

Pizza Poppers were developed after Chapman students researched existing foods for astronauts and noticed a significant lack of comfort foods, like pizza and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, according to Prakash. She says impressive characteristics of the product from the NASA perspective are its utilization of protein-rich wastewater leftover from tofu manufacturing, and its ability to be crispy while producing no crumbs that can adversely affect sensitive electronics aboard space stations.

Prakash says the students subjected their product to extensive microbiological, chemical, physical and sensory evaluation tests in order to develop a pizza snack that has an attractive texture and taste and is safe for consumption even with a one-year shelf life. Like other products originally used for space flight, students foresee Pizza Pops becoming a popular item in grocery stores, too.

NASA is picking up the tab for the Chapman team to attend the meeting and exposition. They will be on the expo floor with 1,000 other companies presenting the latest in food science, research, product development, safety, and other related topics. Later this year, the students will be offering their pizza to scientists at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The IFT Annual Meeting + Food Expo(r) delivers comprehensive, cutting-edge research and opinion from food science-, technology-, marketing- and business-leaders. Scientific perspective and solutions to world food issues proceed beyond this five-day event, when IFT co-hosts the 12th World Congress of Food Science and Technology, July 16-20, at Hilton Chicago. More information on these events is available online at http://www.am-fe.ift.org.

Founded in 1939, the Institute of Food Technologists is a not-for-profit international scientific society with 28,000 members working in food science, technology and related professions in industry, academia and government. As the society for food science and technology, IFT brings sound science to the public discussion of food issues. For more on IFT, see www.ift.org.