Our food is, of course, a major priority, superseded only by a working water-maker. So, what do we eat?

Our diet consists of a lot of dried products. All food is either eaten as is, or with an addition of water. Breakfast consists of one half of a package of muesli (the packages alternate between a 550g packaging and a 330g packaging).

Lunch and dinner each consist of (on average) 175g package of freeze dried meals that can be prepared with just adding hot water. While we only have two flavours of muesli for breakfast, we have 15 different flavours of lunches and dinners.

In between, we eat a lot of snacks. For a typical day, we have allotted: a 75g portion of nuts (either Brazil nuts or almonds), 8 muesli bars (a mix of two types), 8 fruit sticks, 175g of a varying trail mix of nuts and raisins, two 75g bags of dried fruit (apples and either blueberries or cranberries), 100grams of chocolate, jelly beans, gelatin candy, half bag of beef jerky, 125g of biscuits and 3 small bags of chips.

In addition to solid food, we carry two main types of powders for making drinks: an energy drink (Horleys replace) and a mix of protein powders. During the course of a day, we drink 3L of the energy drink and about 250g worth of protein in drinks (more for Andrew, who is larger than the rest of us). We drink during and after each shift (there are 6 shifts in a day).

Our solid food provides each of us approximately 55000 kJ per day, while our drinks provide slightly more than 5000 kJ per day.

A second important aspect is packing of the food itself. Food can and does go bad when standing in water for weeks. Other expeditions had to throw away large portions of their food due to poor packaging. We pack all food in lockable plastic bags, which are then placed into watertight bags. Powders are stored in sealed plastic containers.

- By Martin