Happy and Healthy Eating on SAS

The featured speaker at one of our daily get-togethers for Lifelong Learners on Spring 2009 was the Hotel Manager, one of the officers of the ship's crew. One of his areas of responsibility is food service and he was gamely fielding questions from our group, a few of them somewhat negative in tone. He said, "Imagine your very favorite restaurant at home. Now imagine eating breakfast, lunch and dinner there for over 100 days. Don't you think you would get tired of even that food?" Point taken. The food on the MV Explorer doesn't even start as your favorite food so, yes, you can expect to get tired of it.

That said, I think they do a pretty good job of catering to all the preferences and restrictions for 800 people of all ages and backgrounds, especially when you factor in the availability and cost of fresh food in the ports we visit. Many of those passengers are young men who I'm convinced have hollow legs and are virtually impossible to fill up, hence a lot of pasta and potatoes, and the perennial favorite, peanut butter and jelly. The vegetarian and gluten-free options have gotten better and better and are clearly designated with signs on the buffet. On the night before a port, a menu of dishes from the upcoming country is offered. Barbecues on the seventh deck are a special treat and loved by all, as is the famous Taco Day. It boggles my mind to think of provisioning for 800 people (make that around 1000 people with the crew) for 100 days, on a budget that is nowhere near that of a cruise ship. Don't get me started on the ISE budget and what an amazing job they do stretching the dollar to run this program - did you know that one third of your fee goes to fuel alone? It's a nonprofit organization and, trust me, there is nothing leftover to buy more expensive food, especially given the availability and quality issues for fresh food in port.

My recommendation about food is two-fold: 1)make sure you vary your diet using all the options available and 2)bring from home or buy in port (including the city you leave from) some things that will make your tummy happy half way around the world. Many people are on the ship for weeks before they discover, for instance, the soup on a different table from the main buffet - it's often quite tasty and sometimes wonderfully unusual, like a cold fruit soup. The two salad dressings offered that day may not be your favorite but there is always oil and vinegar at the end of the line. Students soon discover how good the smoothies, pizza and burgers are in the snack bar on the pool deck but faculty, staff and LLLs should check those out early in the voyage. The galley crew is really quite talented and can put on an amazing dining experience so consider the option of Special Dining, that often includes menu items like shrimp cocktail, steak and fancy desserts. Just as with the snack bar, it costs extra, about $35 charged to your shipboard account, but definitely worth it for special occasions like a birthday. There's also a late night snack, usually small sandwiches and desserts, put out around 10:00PM, or 2200 ship time, that takes a while for people to discover.

You will find that any food or snacks you bring on board will be very welcome treats, especially on long stretches of sea days like the two ocean crossings. You can shop in the port you're leaving from after you get there, hopefully a day early to prevent any issues of lost baggage. Depending on where you are in the alphabet, you might be able to get on the ship and then get off again to shop the day the ship leaves but I wouldn't count on it. You can, of course, pack snacks from home and figure that the space used will be replaced with treasures you've bought when you pack to go home. In addition to your favorite granola or meal replacement bar, you might consider nuts, dried fruit and packets of flavoring to add to a water bottle, whatever doesn't spoil and takes up as little space as possible.

If you're shopping in the embarkation port, think about a favorite bottled salad dressing or salsa. There's a small refrigerator in your cabin. The small boxes of granola cereal appear rarely and go fast so you might bring your favorite. If you care about coffee at all, I've got some not great news: although it has recently improved, the ship's coffee ranges from not so good to kinda bad, depending on how picky you are. I'm proud to say that thanks to my daughter-in-law and her team at the corporate office in Seattle, you can now bring Via, instant Starbucks, with you and I highly recommend it - try it, you'll like it and it's perfect for this situation. A number of people bring a small French press and some ground coffee (hot water is always available) to get them started then buy wonderful international coffees in our ports. The supply of sweeteners is variable and doesn't usually include Stevia so if you're devoted to one of those, bring it.

In my earlier post about travel, I recommended that you do your traveling into the country in the early days of our stay and save the last day for exploring the port city. In addition to hitting the Internet cafe for uploading pictures and Skyping and the post office for stamps for all those marvelous postcards you wrote, you'll want to save some time to restock your food supplies. Remember that you can only bring food back onto the ship if it is still sealed in its original packaging so no snacking! And I wouldn't wait until close to on ship time to come through the security line with lots of bags of groceries - try to do it earlier in the day. It's fun to browse the local stores for intriguing brands of cookies, crackers, chips or other snacks - you might find a particular brand of Japanese cracker to be your new favorite and will get so addicted that you really miss it when you get home!

So, make sure you use all the options available on the ship, especially if you find yourself getting kind of tired of the food. And bring from home or buy in port anything that will spark up your daily fare and keep your tummy happy as you sail around the world.