In the early days of a martian settlement, dehydrated foods brought from Earth may be combined with locally-produced foods to make hybrid dishes.

What will People Eat on Mars?

Think about your current diet: how much cheese, milk, eggs, and factory-farmed meat do you eat? If you're vegetarian or vegan, imagine the water and energy needed to irrigate and harvest all those crops. Can these eating habits be transplanted to Mars? Can they be sustained on Earth?

On Mars, plants cannot be grown outdoors, and there won’t be any animals roaming around, at least for now. Water will be scarce. Will martian citizens be forced to import all their food from Earth? How long could you put up with instant coffee and reconstituted spaghetti?

Faced with these questions, we wrote a paper on how to achieve food self-sufficiency for one million people on Mars by producing plants, insects and cell-based (or cultured) meat, drawing heavily on local resources.

The Martian Diet

You can start eating like a Martian today! Well, sort of. Cell-based meat products are not on grocery store shelves yet, but a host of companies are working on making it happen within 1-2 years, while others are introducing dozens of insect-based products to North America and Europe.

The “Martian Diet” offers environmental and ethical benefits over traditional Western habits: no mass suffering of caged animals, and sharp cuts in land, water, energy use, and carbon emissions.