When Shubhanshu Shukla flew to the International Space Station in June 2025, he became the first Indian to carry a home-cooked taste of the subcontinent into orbit. But the menu was a lot shorter than anyone had planned — and the story of how it got whittled down tells us something fascinating about what food actually has to survive before it can leave Earth.
Three dishes out of a much longer wish list
The Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL), which sits under DRDO and is already developing food for India's Gaganyaan mission, had put together an ambitious spread for space qualification testing: khichdi, pulao, vegetables and several other everyday Indian favourites. After all the required rounds of testing, only three items cleared every hurdle — gajar ka halwa, moong dal ka halwa and aamras.
Shukla, speaking on Raj Shamani's podcast, was straightforward about why the others didn't make it. "They wanted to do more tests, but we did not have enough time. So only three foods could clear all the qualification requirements," he said. It wasn't that the dishes were unsafe or unappetising — the mission timeline simply ran out before the paperwork could.
There's an irony worth noting here: Shukla himself didn't get to eat any of the three certified dishes. All of them were shared with his international crewmates, who apparently enjoyed them. "What better way to be in space than sharing food?" he said.
Why getting food to space is nothing like packing a tiffin
Space food certification is genuinely rigorous. Every item must remain safe, nutritious and shelf-stable for months without refrigeration. It has to withstand the vibrations of a rocket launch, function safely in microgravity and — critically — not produce floating crumbs or excess moisture that could drift into electrical equipment. Microbial safety standards are strict, and sodium levels are typically kept low to protect astronaut health on long missions.
Microgravity also plays tricks on the body itself. Fluid shifts toward the head give astronauts a perpetual feeling of nasal congestion, which dulls both taste and smell. This is exactly why bolder, spicier flavours tend to work better in orbit — and it explains why Shukla found himself, by day thirteen of his mission, calling his flight surgeon to ask if he could get something salty. His craving was finally satisfied back on Earth, where his Indian flight surgeon welcomed him home with banana chips and bhakarwadi.
Even something as simple as a seasoning shaker doesn't fly — salt and pepper have to be dissolved into liquid form so they don't float away and cause damage.
Why this matters for a food audience in India
For anyone who loves Indian food — and that is most of us — this story is both humbling and exciting. It reveals just how technically demanding our cuisine is to translate into shelf-stable, crumb-free, microbe-safe, microgravity-proof form. The very qualities that make a good khichdi or a fragrant pulao wonderful on a plate — moisture, texture, loose grains — are precisely what make them tricky to certify for space.
But the progress is real. DFRL is actively expanding its space food programme ahead of Gaganyaan, and the lessons from Shukla's mission will directly feed into a wider menu for India's future astronauts. The goal is that the next crew to go up won't have to share their halwa with the rest of the shuttle — they might actually get to eat it themselves. For a country that takes its food as seriously as India does, that feels like a milestone worth watching.