Food on Mars with Dr. Flávia Fayet-Moore

Food keeps us alive — but it also keeps us human.

In this Everyday Mars episode, Joe talks with Dr. Flávia Fayet-Moore, or Dr. Flav, a scientist, entrepreneur, and space nutritionist who’s making the future of food exciting again — on Earth and beyond it.

Dr. Flav is the founder and CEO of FOODiQ Global, co-founder of Food is Cool, and an alum of the International Space University’s Space Studies Program. Her work blends nutritional science, genomics, sustainability, and a serious passion for making food fun.

Together, Joe and Dr. Flav dig into what astronauts are eating right now (spoiler: lots of pouches), why nutrition gets weird in microgravity, and how long-duration Mars missions will push us to rethink how we grow, store, and enjoy food. They also explore how what we learn for Mars could make eating better and living healthier easier for everyone here on Earth.

So whether you’re a future Martian farmer or just someone trying to keep your plants alive — this one’s for you.

A huge thank you to Dr. Flav for joining me today and sharing her insights on nutrition in space, to Nick Thorburn for our stellar theme music, to Ceci Giglio for the beautiful graphics, to RDan, Leila, Inka, and Carl for admining the Fcebook group, and to my family for always supporting this mission — even when the kitchen experiments start looking a little too astronaut-ready.

For our episode on Pets on Mars: https://www.aspiringmartians.com/episodes/everyday-mars-pets-on-mars

Check out some more weird sheep facts in our Clothing on Mars episode: https://www.aspiringmartians.com/episodes/everyday-mars-fashion

Dr. Flav's paper "A food "lifeboat": food and nutrition considerations in the event of a pandemic or other catastrophe": https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18072916/