With Thanks to Outer Space

Cultivate the attitude of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Older hikers and backpackers like myself may remember a time when convenient and lightweight food was hard to find. Oatmeal and cocoa were not available in packets. Freeze dried food could be purchased at outdoor stores like REI but was expensive and offered limited choices.

Fortunately there was the space program. NASA and the Pillsbury Company researched and developed a number of foods that were designed to meet the nutritional needs of astronauts as they orbited the earth for many days. In 1962 Scott Carpenter consumed the first “non-frozen balanced energy snack in rod form containing nutritionally balanced amounts of carbohydrate, fat, and protein.” They were appropriately named “Space Food Sticks” and soon showed up on supermarket shelves, Pillsbury capitalizing on the popularity of the space program.

If rods of nutritionally balanced energy snacks sound unappealing, let me tell you that they were quite good in the way that candy is good. They looked rather like thin Tootsie Rolls and came in a variety of flavors, my favorite being caramel. They became a regular snack item for me on the trail, congratulating myself as I ate that I was eating something nutritious.

In fact Pillsbury’s claim contained no convincing evidence that this space food was any healthier than a candy bar. Candy is a staple of the diet of most hikers and backpackers and for good reason. The energy rush that sugar provides is a great boost for making it over the mountain passes with a heavy pack. Weight gain is typically not a concern among hikers, as the energy expenditure of a full day on the trail burns up those excess calories pretty quickly. It is worth noting, however, that tooth decay is one of the most common maladies of long distance hikers.

Three months before Scott Carpenter nibbled on Space Food Sticks John Glenn consumed a fruit flavored drink that came to be known as Tang while orbiting the earth in Friendship 7. This powdered fruit drink also made its way to grocery shelves and became a staple of my backpacking diet. Once again, its nutritional benefits are dubious, but I have always enjoyed that sweet orange taste while I wait for my tea water to boil in the morning. It is the closet thing to fresh that I have ever experienced on the trail except when I am able to add fresh huckleberries to my oatmeal, a wonderful treat. Freshness is one of the things I miss the most on a long trek.

Tang used to be available in several different flavors but now is limited to orange and mango, artificially flavored of course. It cannot be called juice because it is not. Instead it is sold as a “breakfast drink,” an inexpensive orange juice substitute that is supplemented with calcium and vitamin C.

I think of these foods as “nutrition for the soul.” Yes, they are loaded with sugar and chemicals, but sipping Tang from my Sierra cup takes me back to the trail, to my campsite in the morning, to the celebration I feel every time the sun finally rises over those eastern ridges and a new day on the trail begins. I like to imagine that somewhere above me in the International Space Station an astronaut is sipping her Tang. She is watching the earth rise.