Free Republic

Soldier: 'You Can Get Rid Of the Mint Brownie, Sir' CAMP WOLF, Kuwait -- This may seem a strange place to conduct consumer research, but the man with the notebook couldn't have it any better. "OK, you don't like the Thai chicken," food technologist Michael Acheson says, scribbling the comments of Spc. Joe Diggins, one of a dozen Army infantrymen, snipers and scouts gathered around him in a semicircle. Mr. Acheson normally works outside Boston at the Army's Combat Feeding Directorate in Natick, Mass., where Meals Ready-to-Eat are developed and tested. Meals Ready-to-Eat, or MREs, are the military's infamously long-lasting...