Most items of the current space food system will not achieve the minimum 5-year shelf life required for a mars mission due to decrements in nutritional quality or sensory acceptability

Previous AFT studies have shown critical losses in some nutrients in a number of space food products after 3 years of ambient storage (cooper 2015) unacceptable losses in quality after 3 years (catauro and others 2012) and the inability of individual processing and storage solutions to achieve a projected 5-year shelf life (cooper 2015). This task will investigate the use of hurdle approach to increase the shelf life of the space food system. The study will produce the 5-year data essential to fully inform the state of a mars food system and indicate the best countermeasures to nutritional and sensory degradation. This study will investigate stabilization technologies combined to provide multiple hurdles to nutritional and quality degradation with the goal of identifying approaches that extend the shelf life of the current food system to five years. This grant is to initiate LEA mohr/ameriqual to provide food to be used in the hurdle study. The specific aim of the overall study is to determine how reduced storage temperatures (-80C -20C 4C) and alternative processing and packaging impact the quality and nutrient concentrations of space food over a 5-7 year shelf life period as compared to the quality and nutrient concentrations of space food produced under traditional methods and stored at ambient temperature (21C).