NASA HUNCH CULINARY

The Astronaut Culinary Challenge develops food items for the Astronauts aboard the International Space Station from a general theme idea. Each year there is a new theme given out to the schools where the students create new dishes taking into account food processing procedure and nutritional requirements so that their items will meet the standards of the NASA Johnson Space Center Food Lab. With the growing culinary program we’re excited to bring in a wider range of students and show how research into space isn’t limited to only STEM fields, as well as educating students in researching and presenting their work in a professional environment.

Nation wide we have 33 different schools creating many entrees to be brought into their local center for a taste competition with different food industry professionals and personnel from the center. After these preliminary culinary competitions, those with the highest scores from across the country are invited to Johnson Space Center for a final competition where their work will be judged by Food Lab personnel, industry professionals, ISS program office, and Astronauts for quality, taste, their work on the research paper, and presentation video. The winning entree will be processed by the Johnson Space Center Food Lab and sent up to the station for the astronauts to enjoy.

For more information about the Culinary program as well as detailed information for the students participating please visit the HUNCH Culinary website. New this year we are implementing hashtags for students to attach to photos of their work for display on social media sites, please use #NASAHUNCH when tagging photos so that we can find all of the great content that students create.