An Astronauts Dessert
Chapter 3 of my graduation Project 2022How did food start to travel and where do we want to go?
With the green and the industrial revolution came the big separation of eating and farming.1 It didn’t happen in the same place anymore. Instead, the food started to travel. And
because ceramics breaks easily it was no longer desired. Metal protects better and plastic is invincible.
Lids became tighter, airtight even. People started moving around. From walking, horse- riding, to using the train, car, truck, to airplane and now spaceship. Humanity started moving al around the globe. This globalization demanded more and more from packaging and preservation and now that we take it beyond the earth’s atmosphere, it must match our highest expectations. That creates big challenges as the expiration date needs to be stretched longer and longer. It needs to stand more extreme circumstances and be almost microbe free. And vacuum sealed packing seems to match the expectations the best so far.
“[...] many of the latest innovations in food preserving technology involve hi-tech packaging and some of the most valuable discoveries for these were first made by our venture into space”. 2
More lids and packaging in the supermarket are now astronaut-like. Super secure, vacuum sealed or closed off with a foil. We are literally starting to eat more and more
like astronauts. Living in a world where our food is designed to travel bigger and bigger distances. Have you ever heard of the concept of food miles? It is the distance food travels before being consumed.1 And the physical distance between the harvest and the meal
also creates an alienation for the origin. As astronaut food is abstract and clean from fingerprints.
Recent discovery shows that fermented foods produced in factories are less healthy than home grown versions, due to low microbe-activity in the factories. Which simply means that due to super clean factories, the products have less nutrients and benefits, such as vitamin B12.3 And “clean” foods are required to push the foods expiration date. So, the question is, how far do we want to go?
Sources:
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Steel, Carolyn Steel. Hungry City (Vintage Publishing, March 2013)
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Shephard, Sue. Pickled, Potted & Canned: How the Art and Science of Food Preservation Changed the World (New York: Simon & Schuster paperbacks, 2006)
- Pitchford, Paul. Healing with Whole Foods: Asian Traditions and Modern Nutrition (California, North Atlantic Books, 2002)
Envelope for Maturing Mail
Instead of using vacuum sealing to keep all the bacteria out (which I think never really works), vacuum sealing is also very much suitable for fermentation, maturing, marinating, an making syrope for instance. And since vacuum sealing doesn’t take much space, and fermentation (and the other things just mentioned) takes its time. Perfect for sending an edible message to you grandma, that matures on the way. Food is already traveling a lot these days, we should make use of it.
