Nutritionist Christine Chénard has a behavior of embarking on massive adventures, like climbing mountains throughout the planet.
Lately, although, she’s been setting her sights on one thing larger.
“Up there,” she giggled, pointing to the sky. “It’s actually superb!”
Chénard is the co-founder of Completely satisfied Yak, an organization in Cowansville, Que., that turns recent meals into freeze-dried gourmand meals. She discovered a strategy to take away a lot of the water and weight whereas preserving the flavour.
“Normally greens will lose about 90 per cent of their weight,” she defined, “so a ten kg vegetable will probably be 1 kg after freeze-drying. So it’s actually, actually mild.”
Such meals are perfect for expeditions the place weight is an element. It’s why certainly one of her newest creations has caught worldwide consideration — a shrimp curry meal that was carried on the Artemis II mission on board the Orion spacecraft by Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen and the crew.
“It’s making us really feel very proud,” Completely satisfied Yak manufacturing supervisor Marc-André Lebel advised International Information.
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“Making meals and sending it to house — it’s one thing we’re actually pleased with right here in Cowansville.”
The shrimp curry is an identical to the one they promote to the general public aside from a slight change within the components — it wants heat water as an alternative of boiling water for rehydration earlier than consumption.
“Up there, we can not convey the water to boiling level as a result of it may very well be harmful,” Chénard defined.
The corporate’s worldwide success first took off in 2018 when one other Canadian astronaut, David Saint-Jacques, was issued 4 of Completely satisfied Yak meals on his journey to the Worldwide House Station.
With the corporate’s assist, one other meal even served as a connection to his spouse on earth whereas he orbited the planet — meals from the astronaut’s spouse.
“We freeze-dried his spouse’s chili so he had good consolation meals,” the nutritionist grinned.
Chénard’s newest achievement has put her and her total employees over the moon. She even attended the Artemis II launch and advised International Information, “We participated in that mission and for me it was actually one thing fairly new and thrilling.”
This life-long adventurer is now setting her sights on the mission to Mars.
“Sure,” she beamed. “It’s actually superb.”
© 2026 International Information, a division of Corus Leisure Inc.

