The Chilean miners are safe.
All of the 33 Chilean miners are safely back home now. The miners, had been trapped 600 metres underground for two months when a tunnel in their mine collapsed.
Millions of people around the world were glued to their television sets last week, watching each of the miners surface as they were pulled, one by one, from the mine.
While the miners were underground for two months, teams of people on the surface helped ensure they stayed healthy. Good nutrition was particularly important and trickier than you might think.
When the mine first collapsed on Aug. 5, two weeks went by before anyone on the surface could get food to them. The men lived on two mouthfuls of tuna and a sip of milk a day, and a few bites of cracker every other day. Remember, these are large, strong men used to eating a lot of food!
Each miner lost about 20 pounds during that time, and became very dehydrated, meaning their bodies didn’t have enough water. Seventeen days later, the first food arrived down in the mine: a type of medical milkshake called “Supportan.” They were also given water and vitamins.
For five days, Supportan was the only thing they were allowed to consume. That’s because eating too much, too soon, after you’ve been literally starving could bring on a seizure or a heart attack.
After that, the miners’ diets were carefully crafted so they got all the nutrients they needed, but didn’t get too fat which might prevent them from fitting in the rescue capsule. They were given 2,300 calories a day and told to exercise an hour each day.
Here’s a sample daily menu for the miners.
Breakfast: liquid yogurt, toast and jam.
Morning snack: four protein cookies.
Lunch: baked salmon with mashed potatoes, pineapple, Gatorade.
Afternoon snack: bread with dulce-de-leche (a caramel-milk treat).
Dinner: baked pork with corn, tangerine.
When the miners got out, they all looked forward to eating their favourite foods again. Most of them said they wanted to have a big barbeque with their families.
One man, Pablo Villacorta, wanted his mother-in-law to make him spaghetti with sauce because, according to his wife, “he thinks she is a better cook than me.”
CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS
Writing/Discussion Prompt
If you were trapped with the miners in the mine, how would you have kept your spirits up? What types of things would you have said to the miners who were trapped with you?
Reading Prompt
What is the purpose of a list in this article? How could you use it to help you understand the text? Why did the writer of this article include a list?
Primary and Junior
Identify a variety of text features and explain how they help readers understand texts (e.g., table of contents, charts and chart titles, headings, an index, a glossary, graphs, illustrations, pictures, diagrams, hyperlinks, a menu) (OME, Reading: 2.3).
Grammar Feature: Colon
The list in this article uses colons after each heading. When you are reading, circle each colon and look at how they are used to separate headings from the sentence or sentences that are linked to them.
Breakfast: liquid yogurt, toast and jam.
Morning snack: four protein cookies.
Lunch: baked salmon with mashed potatoes, pineapple, Gatorade.
Afternoon snack: bread with dulce-de-leche (a caramel-milk treat).
Dinner: baked pork with corn, tangerine.
