 Hello everyone. Today's Spacepod is all about astronaut food and I don't mean that weird freeze-dried ice cream stuff that they sell in gift shops. So what kind of food do astronauts eat today and what kind of food might they eat in the future? You'll find out in today's Spacepod for June 8th 2016. We've come a long way from the tubes and cubes food from the United States Mercury Program. Today a variety of processing methods are used to give a long stable shelf life to food on the International Space Station and I've been sent some samples of ISS food courtesy of NASA's Johnson Space Center. One way to keep food from spoiling is to use heat and pressure to kill off any microbes in the food similar to the canning process you might use at home. This is called thermostabilization and this packet of black beans here is an example of a thermostabilized ISS food. Each package is labeled in both English and the Russian Cyrillic alphabet. I'm going to try and pronounce this here. There's also a barcode which can be used when crew members are tracking their food intake, usually only when participating in a medical study, and the amount of sodium in the food. It's important to track sodium intake while you're in space to minimize your risk of kidney stones and bone loss. Another way to keep food fresh is by dehydrating it, taking out as much water as possible. This stops microbes from growing in the food and reduces the weight, which is definitely a cost saver in spaceflight. These foods are called rehydratable foods, like this chicken and pineapple salad here, or There are also instructions on how much water to add and how long it will take before the food is ready to eat. There are even velcro dots on the back of the packaging so that the meal can be attached to a wall, surface or a table. Astronauts even get to eat fruit like these rehydratable strawberries here, or And some foods are also sent up in their natural state, like this granola bar here, or Most drinks come in foil packets filled with powder, like this coffee with cream, or And there's an opening at the top where water can be injected and mixed through. This opening can also fit a straw, which can also be locked to prevent the drink from floating out when not being used. Astronauts usually prefer to eat stronger flavored foods due to the changes that happen to their bodies in space, and you can check out my previous video on fluid shifts to learn more about these changes. One of the more popular foods on the space station is shrimp cocktail. But what about in the future? Will we be growing shrimp on Mars? Well, we won't be sending cows and pigs to Mars, at least at first. But a potential source of protein could come from bugs. Insects like grasshoppers and crickets are eaten all around the world. They're efficient at converting their food into edible protein, reproduce quickly and have short life cycles. But what do they taste like? Well, I have some crickets here courtesy of Edible Bug Shop Australia. Let's give one a taste. Oh, they're really crunchy. Like our french fry that's been overcooked. And they taste like when you melt cheese too much and it goes really brown. It has that kind of flavor. Burnt nutty flavor. Not bad. Not bad at all. So what foods do you think we should send to the space station, to Mars, or even grow on Mars in the future? Let us know in the comments below. Tweet us, tell us on Facebook, Reddit or even our website tmro.tv. And as we are a crowdfunded show, I'd like to say thanks to our Patreon patrons by answering one of their questions sent in advance of this space pod. Patron of tomorrow, Jim Meeker asks, are there any plans to grow more food on the ISS or elsewhere beyond the lettuce experiment that we saw recently? Well, Jim, yes. There were two crops of lettuce and one crop of zinnia flowers grown in the veggie apparatus on the space station. And SpaceX's CRS-8 has sent up some Chinese cabbage seeds as well. It's expected by 2017 this Chinese cabbage will be grown and eaten on the space station. Thank you for your questions and thanks to all our patrons, our founders, architects, engineers and ambassadors and dreamers of tomorrow for all your contributions. If you would like to become a patron of these space pods and have the chance to have your questions answered in a pod, head over to patreon.com slash space pod. Thank you for watching. My name is Lisa Stodzianowski and until next time, keep on discovering.