Sunday, June 21, 2009

Tang.....The Space Age Drink


Tang is short for tangy and is supposed to have the flavor of tangerines. With more vitamin C than oranges, Tang was the breakfast drink of choice during the 1960's.
Tang was introduced to the public in 1959 and was marketed as the modern breakfast beverage. In 1965 the Gemini astronauts took the drink into outer space and made Tang a household name.
Made by General Foods, Tang is a sweetened drink powder, artificially flavored and colored. It's one of America's favorite chemically treated foods.
The Apollo and Gemini missions took the drink into space and drank it out of silver pouches. Just add water and you can have a days worth of vitamin C.
Actually, Tang had nothing to do with the space program and was developed by General Foods in 1957, 12 years before anyone went into space. But, because of the advertising, "Tang Takes Off," the space program became a valuable asset to the marketing and sales of the drink.
Sales of the drink today are not what they were back then. I'm sure most people decided that drinking real orange juice instead of mixing tangerine flavored chemical powder with water with a six year shelf life was much better for you.
One household tip is that Tang is an excellent cleaning agent and can be used to clean your dishwasher. Just run Tang through the cycle instead of soap.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great blog.....love the info and wow, not sure I would want to drink Tang knowing it is great cleaning agent as well....Reminds me of when my dad would take some coke to get the rust off my bike chains! LOL ;0)

jj-momscashblog said...

Thanks for the tip about Tang, I thought I had heard something about it being good for different household chores but didn't know the dishwasher one. I thing I'm going to enjoy your blog you sound like a woman who knows what she wants and have had an interesting life. I will be back to check you out again. Thanks for the add with BC. JJ

ethelmaepotter! said...

Haven't thought about Tang in years. Visiting your blog is always a refreshing fun trip down memory lane. What fun!

Whisper said...

i just love Tang. Drink daily and find it refreshing.

Layla Morgan Wilde said...

Thanks for this blast from the past! It's right up there with Kool aid. I Found you from Blog Catalogue's baby boomer sites. Mine is The Boomer Muse, a new one listed there.

PillowNaut said...

LOL, this is great! I hear there was even a Tang pie recipe around this time. I got your alert from BC and came to read; you have a wonderful blog! I may also mention Tang this month, as I am celebrating the Apollo program this July for the moonwalkers' 40th anniversary :)

lol said...

thank u so much for this info i needed it for school project