Polar Husky A to Z
Yummy
That's according to our team members on the expedition trail. With all the hard work the team members must do on an expedition -skiing, hauling, and staying warm- they burn LOTS of calories. They need to consume around 5,000 calories each day, the same amount as in 70 slices of bread and more than twice the amount of calories they eat when they are at home!
See, your body needs calories to burn in order to perform...and in the case of our explorers...to stay warm. It is kind of like a car -- it needs fuel to run. So the diet of an Arctic explorer is very hearty of butter, cheese and chocolate.
Breakfast would typically consist of oatmeal or granola with milk, bread fried in butter with jam or cheese, a couple of fried breakfast sausages and hot chocolate, tea, or instant coffee.
For lunch, the team has nuts, dried fruit, granola bars, cheese, butter, sausage, instant soup or Ramen noodles, chocolate, and water or lemonade.
In the afternoon -after the team has set up camp and are in their tents with a small gas stove burning- a pot of water is heated for them to warm up with tea or hot chocolate and a snack.
Dinner is also prepared on the camp stove and is made up of rice, spaghetti or mashed potatoes (powder) with venison, caribou, or pork, along with vegetables (dehydrated) and cheese.
At bedtime, our explorers always make sure they have a couple of energy bars within reach of their sleeping bags ... when the body starts to feel chilled, it means it needs more fuel (food)!
As for water, it takes the team three to four hours a day melting ice and snow into water to be used for drinking (tea, hot chocolate, coffee, lemonade, and for mixing with powdered milk) and for food preparation (such as for making soup or noodles). While they are traveling, they use thermos bottles to keep the drinks warm and from freezing.
The dogs' food is also carefully managed - the team needs the dogs to be strong. Every day, the dogs receive dry food supplemented with fat and meat, all adding up to around 6,000 calories. If your pet dog ate this much, its stomach would most likely twist and it could possibly die. But the Polar Huskies are made for extreme everything!
