How Aircraft Carriers Prepare 17,000 Meals A Day For 5,000 US Navy Sailors

With more than 5000 sailors aboard, over 17,000 meals have to be prepared each day on an aircraft carrier. Each ship has its culinary staff consisting of over 100 cooks and food experts to handle these mountainous amounts of food every day. It is impressive how the cooks manage to deliver the same standards of food in plenty of quantities every single day. How do they tackle this large-scale cooking during the time the ship is deployed?

The culinary specialists aboard an aircraft carrier prepare 17,000 meals a day - from breakfast to lunch, to dinner, and a midnight meal popularly referred to as "mid-rats" among sailors. These midnight rations are mainly for the night crew members who have a different food timetable - the midnight portions are what they have for lunch, they have breakfast for dinner, and dinner for breakfast. The mid-rats consist of leftovers from dinner and the addition of other food items to spice the meal up.

To ensure this quota of meals is met every day, the kitchen staff adheres to a strict 2-week food plan. The food aboard the ship must, in no circumstances
whatsoever, be used up, even though it is restocked at regular intervals.

It takes 1600 pounds of chicken, 350 pounds of lettuce, 20,000 cups of coffee, 160 gallons of milk, and 30 boxes of cereal to feed the 5000 Navy sailors aboard an aircraft carrier each day! The ship's cooks prepare meals in massive proportions to ensure they are available for other Naval officers on board almost 24 hours each day while carrying out other aspects of their culinary duties.

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