Space Food, Beef Hash, Apollo 11 (Blue)

Food for spaceflight must be nutritious, lightweight and have the ability to be compressed when possible. For the early missions, it also had to be stored without refrigeration and have the ability to be eaten under weightless conditions. This Apollo 11 beef hash fit the criteria.

Each Apollo crew member was provided with three meals per day which provided approximately 2,800 calories per day. The food was freeze-dried and was easily reconstituted by the astronaut with a water probe which dispensed one half ounce of hot or cold water as required, each time the trigger button was pressed. Other food consisted of bite-sized cubes of toasted bread, cookies or crackers, sandwiches and bacon.

The food was protected with a 4-ply, laminated film coating. This protected the food from loss of flavor, moisture and oxygen invasion, spoiling and excess crumbling, and was used on both the rehydratable and the bite-sized foods. The rehydratable foods also had an 8-quinolinol sulfate tablet attached to reduce spoilage in the used food wraps.