Posted on 03/11/2003 4:45:35 PM PST by Radix
Each single-meal MRE is targeted at 1,300 calories, and it's a challenge to get soldiers to eat all the nutrition they need.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
By Beth Greenberg, Globe Correspondent, 3/11/2003
In 1944, Lawrence M. Lewis was a 19-year-old corporal in the Army when he was shipped overseas to France to fight in World War II. Now 77, Lewis still remembers the final meal he had at Camp Upton in New York before embarking for action. ''It was like the last meal before the electric chair,'' he said.
For the next year, until he returned home in October 1945, Lewis and his band of brothers carried Sterno to heat cans of beans, peas, and ham and eggs, and drank a lot of coffee. Today, things are a little different. Granted, cuisine isn't the primary concern in a combat situation, but the US Soldier Systems Center in Natick is trying to ensure that American men and women in uniform are not only getting their necessary nutrition, but enjoying it as well.
''Our job is to fuel the war fighter,'' said Gerry Darsch, joint project director for the Department of Defense's combat feeding program, located at the Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick.
With 150 food items created just since 1993, all following very specific nutritional guidelines, Darsch and the Soldier Systems Center have been working hard to turn MREs back into Meals Ready to Eat from Meals Rejected by Everyone, as they were called during Operation Desert Storm. For the past several years, soldiers have been included more in the decision-making process, offering input on what they'd like to eat while stationed everywhere from Kurdistan to Kuwait. ''Instead of father knows best,'' Darsch said, ''we decided that war fighter knows best.''
Every meal or item, including pot roast with vegetables, seafood jambalaya, ''kreamsicle'' cookies and barbecued chicken pocket sandwiches, must be shelf stable for three years, tolerate temperatures from minus 6 degrees to 120 degrees Fahrenheit, be able to withstand a 100-foot drop without a parachute or 2,000 feet with a parachute, conform to macro- and micro-nutritional standards, and still be palatable.
''After we subject these bad boys to that kind of treatment,'' Darsch said, ''they still have to taste good to 1.2 million war fighters.'' In an informal taste test, three-year-old salmon with lemon sauce was tasty, as were two-year-old vegetarian manicotti and Mexican macaroni and cheese. Apple pie and sloppy Joe tube food are among several selections eaten in planes by high-altitude reconnaissance pilots who can't remove their helmets and are unable to eat solid foods. Hoo-Ah energy bars (Oo-Rah for the Marines) and Ergo drinks are the military's versions of Power Bars and Gatorade. Called ''PERCs,'' short for performance-enhancing ration components, both are designed for sustained energy. By adding high levels of glucose and complex carbohydrates, the PERCs are formulated to help soldiers conserve muscle and liver glycogen, major sources of energy. As a result, PERCs speed the recovery of fatigued muscles, delay exhaustion, and extend endurance.
Each single-meal MRE is targeted at 1,300 calories, and it's a challenge to get soldiers to eat all the nutrition they need. If the choice must be made between carrying food, and carrying ammunition or other supplies, the MREs are often stripped down to what the soldier feels is most essential, and much of the meal, and the nutrition, is left behind.
''Our soldiers go out and they're deployed. Though they might expend 5,000 calories, they're only getting 3,000 in their food,'' said Lieutenant Colonel Ann Grediagin, a nutrition research scientist at the Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine in Natick. ''The question is, in that 3,000 calories, how can we optimize to minimize their decrement in physical and cognitive performance?''
One way is to make eating easier. Pocket sandwiches have become very popular with troops in the field. Lightweight, easy to carry, and unexpectedly flavorful, the sandwiches have been deployed across the globe. Another is to include specific performance-enhancing ingredients. According to Harris Lieberman, a research psychologist at the research institute, ''There's a lot of interest in using caffeine to enhance cognitive performance and perhaps physical performance.'' Each Hoo-Ah bar contains the amount of caffeine in a cup of coffee.
Flameless ration heaters have replaced sterno as the individual portable stove of choice. A small bag with a combination of magnesium, sodium chloride, and iron filings, once shaken and opened, heats to a temperature of 190 degrees. Sealed MRE pouches that might contain manicotti or chicken fajitas with tortillas, are slipped inside the bag, heated, and are removed as piping hot entrees with minimal effort and no mess. The ration heaters, which are lightweight, easy to pack, and require no lighting, have been, according to Darsch, ''an overwhelming success.''
The products developed for soldiers began to trickle into the general population during the mid-1940s, after the military recruited members of the food industry to work on research and development. After establishing new techniques, such as the large-scale deboning, preservation, and shipping of meat, the military shared its new technologies with the food industry. ''Thirty percent of the products you and I would find at the grocery store,'' Darsch said, ''were pioneered by the military -- cake mixes, cryovac beef, freeze-dried foods and coffee.''
A more recent entry into the market from Natick's research and development is the McDonald's McRib sandwich, based on the combat feeding program's ''restructured beef and pork.'' TV dinners and most camping foods also are a result of work conducted by the military, and Natick was an early experimentation site for assessing the effects of irradiation on food. Product testing continues around the globe. In 2001, an expedition team carried Hoo-Ah bars and Ergo drink up Mount Everest.
By 2006, the military hopes to have a combat vehicle with self-contained cooking facilities. A high-powered tank that will hold up to 50 soldiers, it will contain a mechanism to recapture the water present in diesel fuel. That water will be used to reconstitute ''compressed meals.'' About the size of a laptop, and weighing virtually nothing, each highly compacted, dehydrated block of lasagna, chicken pot pie, or other food will be sufficient to feed the entire crew.
Further down the line, but already in development, is the Transdermal Nutrient Delivery System -- a nutrition patch designed for short periods of high-intensity battle. Adhered to the skin, the patch -- similar in appearance to a nicotine patch -- ostensibly would transmit vitamins and other nutrients to the soldiers and sustain their physical and mental performance. One way the nutrient delivery system could work would be by accessing metabolic levels through sensors. That information would be sent to a microchip processor, which would then activate a microelectronic system that transmitted micronutrients either through skin pores or pumped directly into capillaries.
It's a world away from beans in a can. But what would you expect from people who, as Gerry Darsch said, ''think of food as the world's most complex biopolymer
The jarheads have the right idea. You're a rifleman first, and, if you get around to it, maybe you'll learn how to make an omlet.
Doesn't it seem there would be a booming civilian market for these new MREs? They'd be great for cyclists, campers, hunters, and anyone who drives long distances and just wants to have some emergency "rats" in the vehicle. Also, every household should have some of this stuff just stored away for general disaster preparedness. I'd certainly buy a few days' worth.
BS. Give me a claymore filled with c4 any day - I can cook a pot roast.
B/3/325 INF ABN (82nd ABD)
The thought of trying to serve hot meals in the field is absurd, whether the source of heat is sterno cans, the "flameless ration heaters," or a mobile kitchen, is an absurd waste of time and money. The whole thing can be traced to the bizarre superstition that hot meals are inherently better than cold ones. It just isn't so.
The military, just about every school system in the country, and those airlines which still serve in-flight meals could save a bunch of $$$ AND dish up better food if they'd get over their "hot meal" obsession.
I even loved the ham&egg grenade.
I love funny people!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.