José Miguel Soriano, director of the Food&Health Lab of the Universitat de València, believes it’s possible that in the future the tiger nut can be used as food in space missions.

It is not only one of the favourite drinks for getting through summer heat. The horchata, a drink elaborated with tiger nut milk, and especially this tuber, could be considered by NASA’s experts as a food that can be used in future space missions. The blog El Comidista, on the website of the newspaper El País, exposes the results of a study carried out by NASA on the suitability of tiger nut for this mean, which is corroborated by José Miguel Soriano, director of the Food&Health Lab of the Universitat de València.

According to Soriano, “the space industry is doing simulated tests on Earth with products or plants that, in some way, can produce a lot of oxygen and also a product that can be used later. And tiger nut, as a tuber, is being analysed in order to discover if it could be used for feeding in a future”. Thus, it is likely that in a few years we witness the definitive expansion of this traditional Valencian product.

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