The study, which simulated the space laboratory using virtual reality headsets, has the potential to allow NASA to make better-tailored foods for astronauts and others who live in more lonely environments on Earth.
It follows previous data suggesting that astronauts can tire of eating food in space and struggle to maintain their normal nutritional intake.
Associate professor Gail Iles, the project’s co-researcher, said, “What we’re going to see in the future with the Artemis missions are much longer missions, years in length, particularly when we go to Mars, so we really need to understand the problems with diet and food and how crew interact with their food.”
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The new study, published in the International Journal of Food Science and Technology, relied on evidence that suggests aroma plays a major role in food flavour.
RMIT researchers tested how people perceived vanilla and almond extracts and lemon essential oil while wearing virtual reality goggles to simulate the ISS. These results were compared to those in everyday environments.
Lead researcher Dr Julia Low, from the RMIT School of Science, said vanilla and almond aromas were more intense in the ISS-simulated environment, while the lemon scent remained unchanged.
The team found a sweet chemical in the aromas of vanilla and almond, called benzaldehyde, could explain the change in perceptions and an individual’s sensitivity to a particular smell.
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“A greater sense of loneliness and isolation may also play a role, and there are implications from this study around how isolated people smell and taste food,” Low said.
“One of the long-term aims of the research is to make better-tailored foods for astronauts as well as other people in isolated environments, to increase their nutritional intake closer to 100 per cent.”
Low added that their findings that spatial perception plays a significant role in how people smell aromas complemented results from other studies on astronauts’ eating experience in space, including the phenomenon of fluid shift.
Weightlessness causes fluid to shift from the lower to the upper parts of the body, which creates facial swelling and nasal congestion that affects the sense of smell and taste. These symptoms typically disappear within a few weeks of boarding the space station.
“Astronauts are still not enjoying their food even after fluid shift effects have gone, suggesting that there’s something more to this,” Low said.
Adam Thorn
Adam is a journalist who has worked for more than 40 prestigious media brands in the UK and Australia. Since 2005, his varied career has included stints as a reporter, copy editor, feature writer and editor for publications as diverse as Fleet Street newspaper The Sunday Times, fashion bible Jones, media and marketing website Mumbrella as well as lifestyle magazines such as GQ, Woman’s Weekly, Men’s Health and Loaded. He joined Momentum Media in early 2020 and currently writes for Australian Aviation and World of Aviation.
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