I Tried Eating Like A Love Island Contestant For 1 Week
So many eggs.
I honestly don’t believe in the term “guilty pleasure.” You shouldn’t feel guilty about what TV shows you watch or what magazines you read — you should feel guilty about everything (I grew up Catholic). But there’s a specific genre of guilt that settles in after your ninth straight hour of watching a man in a swimsuit aggressively whisk eggs at 7 a.m., all in an ostensible effort to find love. Yes, I’m talking about the bizarre food situation on Love Island USA.
Why are so many contestants so bad at slicing avocados, a famously soft food? Why are they in the most beautiful place in the world, eating stuff that I could probably buy at a gas station?
But hey, I’m not here to judge (well, not for the food… obviously, I’ve judged everything the men have said). So, diet-wise, maybe I should try it for myself. If I can’t be on Love Island, I can at least eat like they do. What would happen if I ate like an Islander for a full week? I decided to give it a shot.
The Game Plan
The food rules — as far as I could piece together — are simple. You make your own breakfast (hence, the avocado slicing). Apparently, the crew burns through about 12 avocados and 40 eggs daily, which is less a breakfast and more an agricultural event. To keep the whole ship sailing, the fridge gets restocked three times a day, so no one gets hangry.
Then there’s the catering. Lunch and dinner are catered and, by most accounts, gross. One contestant called it the worst food he’d had in his life (I would low-key be so flattered if any of my exes said that; I make a lot of lentil pasta). Another hated the catering so much that he survived on hummus for most lunches and dinners, which is what many of us call “our 20s.” One reportedly left the villa 10 pounds lighter because of how gross the food was. Oh, and to wash it all down, there’s exactly one alcoholic drink per night, and it is “not a generous pour.”
My Daily Diary
Monday
I woke up and put myself in the headspace of a man on the show. That means devouring three eggs, and then, three more eggs. I also made myself a drip coffee, because I do that anyway. But instead of using it to get a courtship started (romantic! No one ever banged over green tea), I drank it alone, slowly, like a sociopath. I did not get that cute text chime. Then, lunch: defrosted pizza. It was catered. Catered from my freezer. And I ate it over the sink. Whatever, I don’t have a private chef.
Tuesday
For breakfast, I decided to scramble eggs while averting all eye contact, which proved easy, as I was the only person in my apartment. To honor the show’s commitment to keeping the boys and girls separated at meals, I ate lunch in a different room from my cat. He’s a boy. A boy-man. A sweetie-cutie-man-boy-cat. Anyway. For the full Love Island catering experience, I decided the food needed to taste like nothing, so I put unseasoned rice on a silver tray. It was cold (because of the tray). TBH, it was more of a bowl. But a tray, by the standards of my kitchen.
Wednesday
On Wednesday, I got lazy and did cereal for breakfast. And because it was better than the “catered” lunches I’d been eating, I ate it for lunch, too. And for dinner. And then I channeled my inner Melanie and made a grilled cheese. You can’t go wrong with cheese melted on bread. Actually, I did, because I only had keto bread in my fridge, and that’s on me (to be clear, it’s not because I eat keto bread, it’s because I bought it once and never ate it). Also, I’ve never really figured out how to get the cheese to melt without the bread burning, so I just put the whole thing in the microwave. After frying it. Still works! Anyway, it was a lazy day, and it paired well with my thimble of wine. Yum yum yum!
Thursday
Eggs again for breakfast, this time on top of avocado toast. Too many flavors, but also, not enough flavors — kind of a profound metaphor for dating, if you don’t think about it. I ate some tropical fruit afterward (grape juice… but before you say, “Doesn’t count,” please know that I drank it out of a mason jar). By dinner, I had to admit that the one-drink rule had humbled me. I poured myself a single, joyless glass of wine and drew it out over the course of the night, like I was prepping for a colonoscopy or something. By 9 p.m., I had the clarity of a monk. No wonder they all fall in love on that show. They’re probably just so in awe of each other’s sobriety. I was so bored, and I was so hungry. And nobody was pulling me for a chat.
Friday
By Friday, I’d started taking my massive plate of eggs very seriously, which means I was adding salt. I get the whole “salt” thing now. If you add salt, things taste salty. In a good way. For dinner, I made fish. Salmon. A woman, cooking salmon on a Friday night? Not just surviving… thriving. I’d be so good on the show. My phone would be chiming all the time.
Saturday
I tried to make pancakes for breakfast but flipped them about 90 seconds too early, so what I got was more like pancake-adjacent batter soup with a tan. And putting it in the microwave didn’t help. In fact, I think it made the whole thing worse. Since breakfast was inedible, I did my big one for dinner, treating myself to my one takeout night. I ordered Chinese food. TBH, I should have just made a toastie. At this point in the week, too much flavor overwhelmed me. I wasn’t used to it. I was still hungry, so at night, after a long day of romantic warfare (I deleted and re-downloaded Hinge twice), I made a second breakfast. More eggs, alone. Solo.
Sunday
Final toastie. I made it with the reverence of a season finale. As in, I let it burn, and I ate it in silence. After that, I did hummus and pita for dinner. Honestly, delicious. I think the preservatives in hummus might be my new favorite food.
My Review
How did I feel by the end of it? Lighter, technically, though mostly in the spirit. My mood was flat in a way I’ve decided to call “serene.” My perspective changed. I no longer judged adults for eating cereal for dinner. Who needs flavor? Would I survive on Love Island? Hard to say. But I’ve now spent a full week hungry, sober, undersexed, and waiting for a chime that never came. So, spiritually, I’m basically a finalist.
