When NASA first began packing people onto space flights, they lacked clarity about what zero gravity might mean for the human digestive process. (Not including that time Stephen Colbert sent it up in a balloon.) If you're willing to set aside the winning properties of ice cream classic and hang all your hopes on heat resistance, that is.Īnyway, in honor of the impending astronautical achievement, we remember: Freeze-dried ice cream, the space dessert that maybe never even went to space. The Apollo missions, you see, gave us freeze-dried ice cream, an unmelting space food that turns out to be absolutely unsuitable for space travel but maybe pretty okay for scorching summer days. So, while we're glad that NASA created the modern technology to make it possible to freeze-dry food in mass quantities, NASA did not invent the art form of freeze-drying.I scream, you scream, we all scream for reconstituted dairy dust-I think that's what they say? Certainly it would be an appropriate thing to say now, as we prepare to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing (July 20th, 1969) and simultaneously weather a harrowing heat wave. We'd love to say that Astronaut Ice Cream was one of the first foods to be freeze-dried, but it turns out that wild potatoes get to claim that title. Quick carbohydrates available at all times? Now, that's an incredible famine-proof, survival technique if you ask us! Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due This means the Aymara are left with food that is not only edible, but is storable for up to twenty years. In fact, their method of freeze-drying is quite sophisticated, as their trampling of potatoes and leaving them in running water, rids the wild tubers of about 97% of their toxins. The difference is how the Aymara use their natural environment of high altitude, low pressure and the sun to get the freeze-drying job done. What's shocking is how similar the Aymara's ancient method of freeze-drying is to that of modern-day techniques. Put the potatoes on your front doorstep and let them freeze overnight and dry out in the daytime, squeezing occasionally, then leave for another few weeks.Put the trampled potatoes in a loose wicker basket, put the basket in a stream or creek, and leave for a few weeks.Trample the frozen-solid potatoes like a French winemaker tramples grapes.Freeze the potatoes by leaving them outside overnight at high altitude.In an excerpt from book Ingredients: The Strange Chemistry of What We Put In Us and On Us, author and chemist George Zaidan, explains how the Aymara people pioneered in the process of freeze-drying food for unlimited storage and to rid poisons from their food. This method of preparing potatoes has not changed since it's invention more than 1,500 years ago. Interestingly, the Aymara - people in Bolivia's high Andes - figured out how to freeze-dry potatoes without pumps or pipes or a freezer. For centuries, they have eaten freeze-dried potatoes, all by taking advantage of freezing mountain temperatures and a baking sun to prepare the local staple called “chuno.” Chuno (‘CHOON-yo’) means “wrinkled” in Aymara. So, freeze-drying at it's most basic level, involves using very low pressure, extreme cold and gentle heat to remove solid water (ice) out of a frozen food without melting the food first. Eventually you end up with freezing cold, bone-dry Astronaut Ice Cream! Yum! As the water vapor enters the second flask, it freezes. Heat from the light helps this process along. This modern technology is how we make our Astronaut Foods snacks today! Here's how it works: a vacuum pump lowers the pressure to almost zero, which causes the frozen water in the ice cream to start to evaporate-without melting. NASA invented the modern technology to freeze-dry food in preparation for the long duration Apollo missions.
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