‘Alone’: Fans Beg to See More Contestants Eating in The History Channel Series

The reality TV series, Alone has a massive nine seasons and two spinoffs on the History Channel. In each regular season, 10 contestants compete at a chance for $500,000, but many drop out due to starvation. The producers drop each participant in a remote location where they must survive alone, hunting and gathering their food. The person who lasts the longest wins the grand prize. Each competitor films their daily life, creating thousands of hours of footage that eventually makes it to viewers’ TV screens. Fans have a request for the Alone producers; show more of what the survivalists eat while they’re out in the wild. 

What do contestants eat on ‘Alone’?

Alone does not always showcase what contestants on the reality show are eating while they attempt to survive longer than the others. There are glimpses sometimes when a survivalist gets a big kill, but viewers feel there are not enough clips of contestants eating. In reality, half of the Alone Season 9 participants chose to bring food rations along with them. However, the editing did not show anyone eating their rations.

Theresa Emmerich Kamper from Alone Season 8 shared what she ate with her fans on social media.

“So, what did I eat on Alone?!” Theresa wrote on Instagram. “Contrary to the edit which seems to indicate that I lived on air until finding a dead fish on the beach…. I was gathering intensively every day I was out. Living on plant foods is far from the idyllic fairy tale that seems to be a prevalent misconception in the outdoor communities. The majority of plant food is a low caloric return for the caloric investment necessary to gather then prepare it. I often spent entire days processing food to make it digestible, but that was what I had. So, you have two options, whinge and go home or get busy and be full and happy! I choose the latter.”

Theresa explained that she built a food scale to measure her caloric intake. Other contestants had different methods for finding food, but they all ate somehow.  

Fans beg to see more of what contestants eat on ‘Alone’

After watching Alone Season 9, some viewers complained that they wanted to see more of what the contestants eat.

“In 9 seasons, we have barely seen anyone chowing down the food ration some of them opted to bring as one of their 10 starting items,” one fan wrote on Reddit. “Past contestants have complained about the producers not showing various wildlife catches or fishing success stories. The producers omit these to further their desired narrative, but it seems many viewers would absolutely dig watching the contestants eat anything, anything at all.”

Many other fans agreed with the original post’s comments. Since many of the contestants tapped out of season 9 due to starvation, viewers want to see what the survivalists did have to eat.

“Couldn’t they just add 5-10 mins at the beginning or end of every episode, summarizing items and kills?” another fan asked. 

It would be a helpful segment for viewers to see how the participants get any calories while surviving. 

Viewers also want to see the hunting restrictions in ‘Alone’

Throughout Alone’s nine seasons and two spinoffs, the producers drop the contestants in many different places. Each location has some restrictions about what the participants are allowed to hunt, eat, or how they can fish. However, viewers rarely know what the limits are.

“I’d love it if they showed the restrictions,” another fan wrote in the same Reddit thread. “You’ll hear contestants mention restrictions sometimes, but it would be so helpful to have it all laid out at the beginning. Fishing restrictions (fly fishing only, gill nets, bait,etc) big game (deer, moose, muskox, bear) smaller game (birds, rodents, foxes, etc etc) would be helpful to know as a viewer to sort of set our expectations for the season.” 

The list of restrictions and a synopsis of what the contestants hunted, gathered, and ate would be easy to squeeze into each Alone episode. It would also solve the viewers’ quest for that knowledge. 

Alone Season 9 is available for streaming on the History Channel app with a cable TV or streaming subscription.