Space Food, Tuna Salad, Apollo (Blue)

This spacefood package contains dehydrated tuna salad from the Apollo era, but was not used on a mission. It would have required the addition of cold water prior to consumption. Food for spaceflight must be nutritious, lightweight and have the ability to be compressed when possible.

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.

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.