How do you eat in space? Simple everyday chores like sleeping or going to the bathroom take on all new challenges when you're weightless and floating in mid-air. Dean is joined by Mark Borison, Host of The Jungle Jims Podcast to do a space food taste test.
We want to hear from you!
Send us your thoughts on this episode at lookingup@wvxu.org or post them on social media using #lookinguppodcast
Episode Transcript:
Looking Up is transcribed using a combination of AI speech recognition and human editors. It may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. This transcript may include additional material from the conversation, not featured in the audio.
Dean Regas: How do you eat in space? Well, how do you do anything in space? You know, when you're weightless, floating around simple, everyday chores like sleeping or going to the bathroom, take on all new challenges when there's no gravity. Rest assured it's going to involve a lot of tubes from the studios of Cincinnati Public Radio.
I'm your host, Dean Regas, and this is Looking Up, the show that takes you deep into the cosmos or just to the telescope in your backyard to learn more about what makes this amazing universe of ours so great.
My guest today is Mark Borison, host of the Jungle Jim's podcast, and is the face of the famous international markets in Cincinnati, and he's here to do a space food taste test. If you're a hungry astronaut, a lot of things are in tubes and self-contained packages. That's true because, well, you definitely don't want crumbs and liquid floating around all over the place.
Tortillas are extremely popular over bread because no crumbs. Tea and coffee, good. Sodas and fizzy drinks, bad. Fresh fruit and vegetables are definitely luxury items, and well, they only last a short time as they arrive only on the occasional resupply mission. So enjoy them while you can, and there are dedicated NASA culinary experts to help prepare a variety of meals.
So we don't exactly have a NASA approved menu to sample today. But in a Looking Up first, we are going to conduct a space-like food taste test within Earth food expert.
Mark Borison: Hi, my name is Mark Borison. I am the ambassador of fun at Jungle Jim's International Markets. I host their podcast and their social media. I'm also an actor and generally likable.
Dean Regas: So today we're talking about space food with Mark here. And so for listeners who've never visited Jungle Jim's before, can you describe it and sum it up for anybody that's never been there?
Mark Borison: In a concise manner? No. But all kidding aside, I always tell everyone it feels like Walt Disney and Willy Wonka met and were like, what if we built a grocery store? I think that's kind of the energy we food from all over. We're almost at 80 different countries of food. We keep expanding and bringing new stuff in.
Dean Regas: And how does Jungle Jim, himself, involved with all this?
Mark Borison: Oh my gosh. So Jungle, there is a person named Jungle Jim, right? He's a real guy. He's in the store every day and he is still running the ship pretty tightly. I love it. He's very funny. He's the only other adult in my life with a costume closet. Do you know what I mean?
Dean Regas: Well, we thought you were the right person for this job here because we're looking for spacey food themed food. Yeah. That's kind of maybe has a space tangential to it. And so you brought some stuff with us. What do you got?
Mark Borison: So I have a whole lineup. I went a little crazy, as you and I were talking earlier. I love space, so I was very excited to be here in the first place. And I tried to go a couple different routes. Right. And you know, you're looking through traditional astronaut foods, so you've got like they're doing all of the vitamin packets and things of that nature. Now, I'm sure that they probably package a lot of their stuff differently here, but I brought a couple different things. I brought these fun probiotic waters from Karma Water. I really, I think they taste great. And the cap is filled with like live probiotics. These have live probiotic cultures and then you dump it in the water and it creates a little thing, kind of a modern take on Tang, right? Going back to the astronaut thing. So I thought that was fun. It feels futuristic.
Dean Regas: I thought you were going to say there's like alien creatures in the probiotics.
Mark Borison: Those are what? The probiotic they could be. That's what I believe they are. I believe mushrooms are those at this point. So I, I wouldn't be far off here.
Dean Regas: Well, let's combine them. All right. So what do I do?
Mark Borison: OK, so here's the deal. So on the top there, there's a little plastic peel, so you'll peel that little paper off here. OK. There's little creatures in there. Yeah. All right, so you can see there's a depressor on the top. So you want to pretty aggressively push that in. And what it's going to do is it's going to push a hole into the bottle of water and then it will dump all of these lovely, you can see them dumping those little probiotics in the water. And then there you go. I heard that pop. And shake it up. Now, a fun fact, this company told me they were like, you know, there's a lot of probiotic cultures out there. That's a hot thing in the food space right now. But the reason they do it this way is that you apparently lose a lot of said cultures as soon as you dilute it into water in the first place. Like they're dying off immediately. It's one of those, they're like, drink this in about a half an hour's time. There is the weird bit of like suction happening, which feels sciencey up top, you know?
Dean Regas: Yeah. And then, all right, so then you, and then you just unscrew the cap. Unscrew the cap, OK. And let's see what this will be like.
Mark Borison: Hopefully delicious. I like them, but Oh yeah. Mine smells good.
Dean Regas: Hmm. All right. Be, Hmm. I was going to say better than Tang, but now I'm not so sure.
Mark Borison: Yeah, it's different than Tang.
Dean Regas: Yeah, we'll say that. Different than that.
Mark Borison: I can taste it. There's 100% of my daily vitamins in it, if that makes sense.
Dean Regas: Yeah, it does. It does feel like I can go to outer space now.
Mark Borison: So coming up next, this is in a line of pr. I thought this was fun. I was reading a lot about, you know, they freeze dry their food and all that kind of stuff. So I brought two in. This is a company called Karen's Naturals. And I brought two different ones because I, at first I was like, oh, freeze dried fruits. There's like a lot of freeze dried candies. It was like, this sounds unhealthy. So what I found instead were some hot veggies. And then the other one is strawberries and bananas. So what the reason I brought the hot veggies? I thought you'd appreciate this as you know. Being in space dulls your sense of taste a little bit. So they can usually hang with a little extra spice. And I'm hoping this is not very spicy since you and I have not left the planet. Here we go. I'll send the veggies over first. I'm not sure what the mix is, but get wild, my friend.
Dean Regas: All right. You're exactly right. I mean, that's what the astronauts. They complain because their sinuses are, are congested so they can't taste as much. And so hot stuff and hot sauce is some of the best things that they go. I bet. All right, so here we go. Yeah, we'll see how crunchy this is. Sorry, I'm curious audio listeners. Hmm.
Mark Borison: Pretty good.
Dean Regas: Yeah, pretty good.
Mark Borison: It's like if the veggies taste, like if I'm just eating, if chili was crunchy. You know what I mean? Right?
Dean Regas: Yeah. Yeah. This is more, you can taste what it actually used to be.
Mark Borison: Yeah. This, and I also was, cursed with a pea heavy bite on the last one of these.
Dean Regas: I think there's a, a gravitational thing going on with that is that all the peas are rising to the top. And so no matter what you, no matter what you, even if you reach down the bottom, your hand will just bring peas up.
Mark Borison: Another universal constant.
Dean Regas: Hey, you're right. I'd, I'd rate these pretty good. I think I like the strawberries and bananas were actually delicious.
Mark Borison: Yeah. Yeah. This is, because I always think of, space food as freeze dried ice creams that you would get. Right.
Dean Regas: I may or may not have brought some of those too. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I'm going to disparage them quite a bit because I cannot wait. They were the worst. Possible thing for a child to eat. Because you're like, you know what ice cream tastes like for sure.
Mark Borison: And then you go to Space Camp and they're like, here you can have space ice cream. And you're like, Hmm, this I, I don't want to be an astronaut anymore. That's what it really does. Right.
Dean Regas: So the last bit is all kind of unhealthy options, which is. Yeah. And when we first started looking, I was just kind of like, there's no way they eat this un they, I can't imagine just hanging out in space, eating ice cream bars. If that's the case, maybe I did. Because I really wanted to do that as a child. And that was like, oh, guess who's not good enough at math? Better be an entertainer instead. So I brought a bunch, but I was excited about these. So we do have the classic, this is a cookies and cream sandwich bar, but I, they also had, I thought these both sounded good. They had fruit ones, so they have peaches. And they have, cinnamon apple wedges.
Mark Borison: OK. Let's see. Oh geez. Oh, it's just one big one and they just wrapped it in the paper still so it Oh, it gives the illusion of an ice cream center.
Dean Regas: That's so funny. Yeah. Because you're like, it's just like rock candy. I remember the first time. Trying one being like, this is disappointing. And then it got a little better when the creamy part kind of melted. But then even then you're still just like, oh, you know, it sounds good. After this actual ice cream,
Mark Borison: My 7-year-old self is very skeptical about this. I am opening this with. Puckered lips because I am not ready to be impressed.
Dean Regas: I know I don't. I hope you're not. I feel like this is only going to be good if you hate it. Here, I'll break off a bit for you. There you go. Thank you so much. There you go. And it's funny that the D, like the freeze drying, did zero to the cookie.
Mark Borison: You're right. The cookie's pretty, it looks exactly like I that is in my freezer. Probably the ice cream is not right, but All right. Hmm. Taste is all right.
Dean Regas: Yeah, taste is pretty. It is good. There I was actually, texture is terrible. Atrocious. It's terrible. Yeah,
Mark Borison: But it went from like solid rocks. Like I was chewing on delicious pebbles, but now, and then at the end I'm like, oh, actually that is a pretty good cookies and cream flavor. Now imagine being in that room in zero G and it's just ice cream cookies and cream dust particles everywhere.
Dean Regas: And if it's floating around, you don't want to eat it.
Mark Borison: No, exactly. I mean, you want to eat stuff, but you don't want to eat. I'll, no, I'm not going to take another bite because we got more. So with, with getting you thinking about all these space foods, what, you know, if, if NASA called and like, we want you Mark to go up to space, would you do it?
Dean Regas: My immediate answer, my quick answer is yes. And then as soon as I said yes, I'm filled with that like unexplainable anxiety and fear. Just because you don't know how that's going to go and it's one of the only places, no, it's not even on earth. Right. But it's somewhere where you're like, if anything goes wrong, it goes incredibly wrong. And I'm in a small space, which I'm a big person, so they'd have to maybe, I was like, what's the deal? I'm like an Excel shuttle.
Mark Borison: Yeah. I always thought it would be great. Yeah. Yeah. You need to, you need some people that are. Like 5 feet tall. I think astronauts would be, I'm too tall for,
Dean Regas: They should be like jockeys.
Mark Borison: Yeah. Space jockeys.
Dean Regas: Exactly.
Mark Borison: I mean that with love too.
Dean Regas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that's what I always, I always think that, but so do you think that you could, survive on. Well, this food for let's say a 7, 7 day mission, or what would you bring with you if you to, to accentuate the ice cream sandwiches and the, just the hot just veggies?
Mark Borison: It would be, yeah. I think I, you know, it's really funny is I think my main thing would be not this Karma water specifically, but I do think I'd be having all of like the powdered things. I'd be like, all right, I want a protein powder. I can shake in the water. So long as I had variety for 7 days, even if it was the worst thing ever, I think I'd be on board. I'd be the most annoying astronaut in the history of astronauts.
Dean Regas: Yeah. Put you in a confined space for let's say 5 or 6 other type A personalities.
Mark Borison: Can you even imagine you with astronauts that that's a, that's got Big Brother written all over it. I would watch that show. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Dean Regas: Well, let's see. You got a few, leftovers or what's the, the final category?
Mark Borison: Yes. So the last two here, these are just straight up candy. So a, again, the freeze dried thing. Has been a huge deal in the last couple years. I don't know if I quite understand it because like the first one I ever had, somebody gave me freeze dried Skittles, and I like Skittles a lot. I like the texture. I'm here for the whole experience. So eating the freeze dried version, I was like, it tastes like Skittles, but now it's just stuck in my teeth really badly. So I haven't been super crazy about it. But these two, I mean this brand in particular, Space Candy, I do think they do a pretty good job of it. They have a lot of unique ones. I couldn't, I was hoping my favorite, they do a lemon drop. That one's awesome, but this today was Snoopy's Moon Rocks.
Dean Regas: All right. So this is your dessert then. Wow. Wait, I've had a lot of dessert.
Mark Borison: I feel like it's all dessert.
Dean Regas: Oh, that's hard.
Mark Borison: Yep.
Dean Regas: Could you crunch her?
Mark Borison: Yeah, I did a little bit, but I also know that I might have to call my dentist.
Dean Regas: There it goes.
Mark Borison: Yeah. Once it starts breaking down, it's almost like those, those big puffy mints you get. I feel like Italian restaurants rock the hardest and it's like something that kind of dried up as of 2000ish, but it reminds me of those like pillowy soft mints, but in vanilla flavor. The last one, these are just freeze dried candy chew. They had the icy. How's that hard?
Dean Regas: Yeah. You know? Oh, wow. OK. These are number one hardest thing we've eaten.
Mark Borison: They're the hardest thing, so taste not bad.
Dean Regas: Yeah.
Mark Borison: OK. Let's see. I'm making a ranking here. I, I hope that's all right.
Dean Regas: I'd be mad if you didn't. All right. I'm sorry to choke on here. Definitely. Snoopy are the worst.
Mark Borison: Yep.
Dean Regas: In my opinion.
Mark Borison: I will just back that.
Dean Regas: Ice cream's next. This is slightly better than ice cream.
Mark Borison: OK. They're all kind of crazy.
Dean Regas: Yep. Do you like find that, that there's like space themed snacks that customers are like looking for? Like,
Mark Borison: Honestly, that Space Candy line, the Snoopy one, now again, they have a whole variety of different options. There's like all kinds of stuff. People seem to love that brand in particular. I do think of all the packaging. Like astronaut, for example, the astronaut line. That hasn't changed since I was a kid. I mean, so we're talking like 30 years of that same branding. Don't mess with the classic.
Dean Regas: Well, Mark, this has been so much fun chatting about space food, about, trivia shows about how I'm going to win the floor next year. I genuinely believe it. We really appreciate you coming on in.
Mark Borison: Dean, it's my pleasure. We'll have to come back. I, you know, I was thinking the whole time, the one thing I didn't bring was Urban Artifacts, astronaut food, and then I realized it's only been a year or two since they've produced it, but I think they're bringing it back this year, EV. They make it all out of freeze dried fruits, so we might have to do it. I'll bring Scott with me sometime.
Dean Regas: All right. Let's do it. Sounds good.
Mark Borison: Thank you for having me, Dean. Truly, it was a absolute pleasure.
Dean Regas: I don't know, have you ever looked at the videos and pictures of astronauts on the International Space Station? I always thought they looked a little funny. I mean, sure. Their hair is floating around. Stand on end, and their faces look well, a little puffy, right? This is one of the un-talked about parts of going into space with virtually no gravity.
Fluids inside the human body don't behave like they do on Earth. They end up higher in the body than normal, including the face. So most astronauts describe this feeling to be similar to having a head cold. So what does that have to do with eating in space? Well, when your sinuses are clogged, that also deadens your sense of taste.
Astronauts frequently report that food on the space station tastes terribly bland. The most popular items on the menu are generally condiments, and number one is. Hot sauce. I'm talking wasabi, sriracha, anything with the kick? So next time you're sick, maybe try pretending you're an astronaut. Eat a little hatch green chili. And that'll cut through some clog sinuses.
Well, Looking Up with Dean Regas is a production of Cincinnati Public Radio. Kevin Reynolds and I created the podcast in 2017.
Ella Rowen and Carlos Lopez Cornu produce and edit our show. And have claimed all of the leftovers from our taste test as Looking Up property. Sorry, Mark. It's gone. Jenell Walton is our vice president of content, and Ronny Salerno is our digital platforms manager.
Our theme song is Possible Light by Ziv Moran. Our social media coordinator is Hannah Pflum. And our cover art is by Nicole Tiffany, I'm Dean Regas. Keep looking up.
