You think you have it rough doing the food shopping for your family every week? Think about the planners at the London Olympics. They have a lot—a LOT—of hungry mouths to feed. About 14 million meals was the pre-games estimate. There are 23,900 athletes and team officials, 20,600 broadcasters and people from the press, and 4,800 Olympic and Paralympic family members. And they have to eat.
And add to that the fact that the athletes themselves don’t just eat, you know, a ham sandwich and call it lunch. Oh, no. These elite athletes need to consume way more calories and carbs than most people. On average, they need to consume between 8,000 and 10,000 calories a day, compared to just 2,000 to 2,800 calories a day for the average moderately active man, according to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
So here’s the shopping list, from the Food Facts site:
25,000 loaves of bread
232 tonnes (tonne is roughly the same as our ton) of potatoes
More than 82 tonnes of seafood
31 tonnes of poultry items
More than 100 tonnes of meat
75,000 litres of milk
19 tonnes of eggs
21 tonnes of cheese
More than 330 tonnes of fruit and vegetables.
Now imagine the pile of coupons they must have for all this! Wheeeeee!
