Beam Reach

The challenges of food

Living on a boat with eight people is an interesting experience. It is fun but it definitely has its challenges. One of those challenges is food. Cooking on a boat is challenging, especially if the seas are very active. Our rations have come from NOLS. They are an educational organization with many different outdoor programs. They ration food for their programs based on the calories needed per day per person, instead of designing meals for each day. These calories are broken down using the food pyramid so that the participants have enough carbs, proteins, sugar and other nutrients. Their method of rationing is really helpful because everyone gets the nutrition and calories they need while allowing for flexibility of the meals. The only food we aren’t getting from NOLS is fresh fruits and vegetables. The food from NOLS is all dried or dehydrated material that is pretty easy to cook. We were able to go to NOLS in Mount Vernon at the beginning of the quarter and bag all of our food for the five weeks on the boat. Everything was calculated by pounds and then divided by week.

We have the NOLS cookbook onboard with an assortment of meals that we can make. Our galley on the boat consists of two stove top burners and an oven that is capable of broiling. These are all fueled by propane. We are now more than halfway done with our time at sea and the food has turned out to be a fun and complicated experience. We have tried many different meals. One of our challenges is satisfying everyone’s preference. Everyone on the boat likes and dislikes different things. I don’t like onions which is a common ingredient in a lot of soups and other meals. Hannah is not a fan of pasta and loves vegetables. Hilary doesn’t eat eggs or potatoes. It is difficult to plan meals to satisfy everyone but we have managed to work through it. Luckily, we are all willing to try and stay away from the things others don’t like for the most part. There are times when we just need to make pasta because we have a lot of it but we make a lot of veggies with it as well. One mornings when we have eggs and hash browns Hilary just eats granola or a bagel, and when onions are used in soup or something else the cooks cut them large enough so that I can pick them out easily or they are just on the side so that whoever wants them can add them.

http://www.nols.edu/store/home.php