It’s officially summer. And if you’re anything like me, that means you’re probably obsessed with Love Island right now. You probably spend every second of every day wondering what the islanders are getting up to instead of answering your Slack messages (sorry, Michael) and you probably refuse to make any plans after 9pm for fear of missing out on the latest episode of hot and heavy Majorca antics. One thing, though, that I spend my time thinking about more than anything is: what do they eat on Love Island? Because, like, honestly: what on Earth do they eat on Love Island?!
All of the contestants look like chiselled Greek gods and goddesses and I can’t for the life of me recall seeing them tucking into anything apart from an endless array of cheese toasties. Even Tommy Fury – a man who looked like he’d eat Rocky Balboa for breakfast with a bowl of porridge on the side – wasn’t ever shown necking back protein shakes or chowing down on premium fillet steaks. If I was the producer, I know that I’d be making sure to ply the islanders with aphrodisiacs like oysters and dark chocolate until they were all fit to burst out of their I Saw It First swimsuits. My personal utopic Love Island would be one where everyone was encouraged to lounge about eating as much tropical fruit as humanly possible. Needless to say, that’s not the reality of what they eat in the villa.
To help me get to the bottom of this mystery, I managed to get in contact with a few ex-islanders and asked them the question that’s been burning on my mind for years now: what do they actually eat on Love Island?
"You make your own breakfast and for lunch and dinner they have caterers," says Callum Jones, who competed on season six of the show, "each day they bring something different and sometimes it was food I’ve never tasted which I enjoyed. We had a lot of different meats and fish and vegan options for those who are vegan – everyone was fairly catered for." Yes, it turns out that the islanders are all catered for.
"During my time in the villa the choice was limited in terms of the food that you could request," he adds, "for example, when we asked for certain things that we were craving (like pitta bread and hummus) it didn’t come until a few weeks later. We ate well, though, and had all the basics we could need like cereal, eggs, fruit, biscuit. etc."
The fridge was apparently well stocked with plenty of meats and cheeses in order to make snacking easier on the islanders. “It’s a typical three meal structure,” admits Callum, “but before going to bed we’d have things like toasties with either cheese and tomato or cheese and ham if we were hungry again!”
Believe it or not, they're even allowed the occasional takeaway. "Once a week, we got the choice of ordering a takeaway from the local area which we looked forward to," says Callum, "I had a nice Italian and from what I remember I ordered a pizza, a pasta dish and some sides." Oh, and for those wondering: the food at Casa Amor was the same as the main villa. Go figure.