Posted on 05/19/2006 3:42:51 PM PDT by 68skylark
NATICK, Mass. (Army News Service, May 16, 2006) – Driven by Warfighter preferences, DoD Combat Feeding Directorate keeps improving and adding items to Meals, Ready-to-Eat.
The nation's Warfighters can look forward to numerous new food items and improvements in the next version of MREs, which were recently approved and will go into production in 2008.
The new items and replacements are the result of extensive evaluations with the very people who will be eating the meals: the nation's Warfighters. Thirty-eight new items were evaluated last September by approximately 400 Soldiers at Fort Greeley, Alaska.
According to Judy Aylward, a CFD senior food technologist and project officer for the Fielded Individual Ration Improvement Program, new items must receive a score of 6 or higher on a quality scale of 1 to 9 (with 1 being extremely disliked and 9 being extremely liked) to be included in the annual field evaluation.
Results from the field evaluations, combined with recommendations by Natick Soldier Center scientists, were presented for approval to the Joint Service Operational Rations Forum in February.
Aylward said she has noticed changes in Warfighter preferences.
"We have seen a trend in the past several years that the Warfighters tend to like ethnic foods, sandwich-type items and eat-on-the-move snack items. They also are more health conscious and read the food labels,” Aylward said. “All MRE items have the Food and Drug Administration food label, which includes nutritional information and ingredients."
The following items were approved to be included in MREs:
Granola with blueberries or strawberries
Instant vanilla or chocolate pudding
Toaster pastries – chocolate chip or French toast
Chipotle snack bread
Chocletto's candy (chocolate toffee candy)
Twizzler Nibs (small red licorice candy)
Chocolate-covered coffee beans
Patriotic cookies (sugar cookie with flags/Soldiers imprinted on surface)
Cheez-Its, hot and spicy
Irish Cream flavored coffee
Banana strawberry dairy shake
Salsa verde (condiment)
Butter Buds
Splenda (sugar substitute)
Some items from previous editions of the MRE will be replaced. Chicken pesto pasta will replace the chicken with cavetelli. Lasagna with vegetables, a vegetarian meal, will replace the vegetarian manicotti.
CFD also tries to include commercial-off-the-shelf products in MREs when possible.
"Name brand recognition provides a little bit of home to the Warfighter, which especially helps to improve morale," said Aylward.
MREs were developed by the DoD Combat Feeding Directorate, part of the Natick Solider Center, in the early 1980s. The CFD has since worked continuously to update the meals to provide optimum nutrition, improve taste, and to reflect the current preferences of servicemen and women.
The meals meet the Office of the Surgeon General's nutritional requirements and are packaged to withstand airdrop, rough handling and temperature extremes. Items included in the MRE must be shelf stable for three years at 80 degrees Fahrenheit and six months at 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
According to Aylward, the next version of the MRE will go into production in 2008 and will be available in the field by 2009 or 2010.
It's admirable to join up out of patriotism but,gosh darn it,don't join up for the chow!
Some of those selections look like they're for issue to the 34th Urban Metrosexual Combat Exfoliation Team (Provisional)!
Reads like a recipe for heart disease.
LOL...my son said that after a month of nothing but MREs he hates them. When he joined he really liked eating them...but not anymore.
this'll keep ya more 'regular' than MREs.
can't wait to hear the nicknames these items will get.
What a strange idea...
Somewhere a Nazi saboteur is still chuckling over inflicting Ham & Lima Beans on my generation...
Well it ain't ham and lima beans (ham'n mothers) but some of the meals look interesting.
Toaster pastries – chocolate chip or French toast
Chipotle snack bread
Chocletto's candy (chocolate toffee candy)
Twizzler Nibs (small red licorice candy)
Chocolate-covered coffee beans
Patriotic cookies (sugar cookie with flags/Soldiers imprinted on surface)
Cheez-Its, hot and spicy
Irish Cream flavored coffee
Damn, if the enemy don't get ya, the menu will. Join the Army, get shot at, come back with cancer and no teeth. Ugh! What listing of CRAP!!
Some of that stuff doesn't belong..
Soldiers aren't "health conscious" as mentioned in the article. Yes, they want to come home in one piece, but want real food for real hunger. Splenda? Ersatz food equals zero calories.
That sounds good.
Looks like he went to the wrong place! When I was in Afghanistan I never had a single MRE although they were made available to us.
Soldiers in the field burn a lot of calories, and it's hard to get them to eat enough -- a sharp drop in body weight hurts physical and mental performance.
It's my impression that the Army will put anything into MRE's that they think will be eaten -- if they had to go with 100% candy and cookies, I think they'd do it.
No Way! John Wayne Bars were the SH!T!!. I don't know why they are not part of the ration Pack. I loved that part of the C rats.
Warfighter???? Is this to be the all inclusive term for grunts in the trench?
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