When soldiers go into the field, they carry with them tiny miracles of engineering. And we're not just talking about weaponry: some very technical and forward-thinking research has gone into military meals. They must be light and easy to carry, capable of staying edible even after weeks in the hot sun, supply the surprisingly high number of calories that soldiers in the field need (more than 4,000 a day), and, of course, not cost the taxpayer an inordinate amount. That has led to some clever tricks of science that have even made their way into the goods you may find on your shopping list.
One of the most interesting items in army rations, from an innovation perspective, is the bread, says writer Anastacia Marx de Salcedo, author of the book Combat-Ready Kitchen. Freshly baked bread begins going stale the moment it comes out of the oven, as strands of a starch called amylose spread all throughout its structure and start to harden. Amylose can be snipped up by enzymes called amylases, but these are denatured by heat as the bread cooks – hence the generally unappealing, razor-to-the-gums qualities of a baguette after a few days.
In the mid-20th Century, however, food scientists at Kansas State College with connections to the US military discovered that adding amylases that stand up to heat changed the equation. These enzymes, which come from heat-tolerant bacteria, kept right on snipping after baking, keeping bread almost eerily soft and flexible and giving it a long shelf-life.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @05:10PM (15 children)
MRE: Meal, Ready to Eat. Chances are you'd never heard of these modern military rations unless you volunteered to serve Bush Laden in his holy jihad against his evil alter ego Bin Laden. That all changed when Bush Laden ordered the Army Corp of Engineers to manufacture a hurricane code-named Katrina. An unnatural disaster gave Bush Laden the excuse he needed to expose a civilian population to MREs and the potent mind-control chemicals contained within. The spread of obedience drugs led directly to the popularity of Facebook and social media and the rise of the Social Justice Movement. With the entire domestic population distracted in inward navel gazing and social infighting, Bush/Bin Laden was free to pursue any foreign policy he chose without question and profiteer from as many foreign wars as he pleased. The operation was so successful that Obummer continued the great work of Bush Laden, even going so far as to assassinate the fictional alter ego Bin Laden to keep the public from suspecting the truth, that Bush Laden and Bin Laden were the same man fighting both sides against each other for his own gain.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by VLM on Sunday May 21 2017, @05:26PM (11 children)
Oh please, MREs date back to the early 80s.
I've eaten that bread and it tastes strange, then again all non-homemade bread kinda tastes strange. Its not much stranger than wonder-bread.
For more fun we could discuss the conspiracy theories around the distribution of flavors, some are strong binary reaction like I personally enjoy the omelette if I have a MRE heater but perhaps 75% of the population hates them. Also in the early 90s they had an oat bar like nothing I've ever eaten since. And there used to be about two flavors a decent cake. Anyway there are also flavors that everyone likes such as the ravioli and the spaghetti-Os. And there's (non-serious?) conspiracy theories about why a quarter of every case is always essentially inedible to perhaps a quarter of soldiers. Supposedly designed that way for unit cohesion use your stomach to force soldiers to do trading deals. Whatever.
They are very sugary high carb meals. Definitely for field / camping / hiking use only.
Personally I think the spicy meals are the most disgusting as your stomach is usually a little jittery outside doing stuff anyway so here comes weird as hell spicy chicken and you're gonna puke or just not be able to force it down.
I wouldn't say MRE's are cheap but they're cheaper than restaurant prices. If you're paying more than ten bucks per meal you're getting seriously ripped off. In bulk in boxes you're paying like $5 per for a case of a semi-random dozen.
Thankfully the menu rotates every year. Unfortunately when you're deployed it likely won't rotate. So get used to six to ten menus because thats all you get.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @05:34PM (6 children)
Keep reading. MREs entered the public eye in 2005 when they were distributed to Katrina victims. Immediately preceding the popularity of Facebook. Coincidence, I think not. The people stopped protesting war after the economic collapse which followed. Suddenly protesters didn't care about war anymore, instead they protested their own empty pockets, and they were promptly told to shut up and stop whining.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @06:12PM
Shut up and keep winning!!! Trump Trump Trump!!!!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @07:57PM (3 children)
Uh, dude, there were people selling MREs to Y2K preppers.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @08:22PM (2 children)
After Katrina I gave leftover MREs as christmas presents to friends and family just so they could share the joy. I still have family.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @08:55PM (1 child)
Or so you think. Reality: they are a bunch of shape-shifter lizard-people.
(grin)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 22 2017, @02:58PM
Those are only on my wife's side of the family.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 21 2017, @08:23PM
"entered the public eye"
So, uhhhh, what does public consciousness of MRE's have to do with anything?
Bit of trivia for you: there were commercial equivalents to MRE's about '72, and maybe earlier. Boil some water, open the pouch, pour some water into the pouch, let it sit for a couple minutes, and you've got instant omelette, or whatever. Except, it didn't quite work out that way. My pouch melted down, releasing the hot water, and all the food, onto my foot. Mine probably wasn't the only one to do that. Someone sued, and that's why the people preparing these meals decided to drop the pouch into boiling water, instead of pouring the water into the pouch. It's much safer that way.
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday May 21 2017, @06:21PM (2 children)
They have to be if you want to cram 4000 calories in there. If they could make you eat flavor enriched lard they would.
The American MRE's are fairly expensive here, usually about $15 each. As I recall they have/serve a Norwegian product instead -- It's NATO standard and all -- called Real TurMat (I guess you have to know Norwegian or Swedish to get that little play with words) . It's a bit hit and miss in my book. I guess the spaghetti and meatsauce (or some variant of it - or "chili") is fairly common, I'd rate it at eatable to okay. The chicken dishes and the beef stew are also okay. The "veggie" meals imho are beyond human consumption, I think I'd rather eat the plastic container. The Real TurMat usually go for less then $10 each in the outdoor stores but then that is only the main meal bag and not the little extras you get in the army bag. The difference between the civilian and military version is the that you can pick and choose as a civilian but for the military version you get a little bag with the your entire days meal plus some other things such as a few pieces of hard candy, crackers, beef jerky, nuts, energy bars, some orange flavored beverages, some freeze dried coffee and a package with some hot sauce. There used to be a decent Goulash soup but I have not seen that in a long time.
https://drytech.no/en/ [drytech.no]
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Sunday May 21 2017, @08:55PM (1 child)
I bought a case of MRE's back in the early 90's (about $50 for 12 from some Seattle military and police company* whose name I can't remember). I would take them on overnight backpacking trips, supplemented with 5 minute rice cooked using a Bakepacker. I would cook the rice while simultaneously warming the foil envelope on top of the bag. I used the dessert to supplement GORP or a can of tuna for the hike out, the main entrée with rice for dinner and the side dish with rice for breakfast. A nice, sealed, compact package for most of three meals. Of course, you had to pack out all the foil packs and what not, but the main MRE envelope provided a perfect bag to wrap them all up. I checked again a few years ago about purchasing some more, but the effing preppers have driven the price up to ridiculous levels.
*They had some really cool stuff in their catalogues, but you had to have proper police credentials to purchase a lot of it.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday May 22 2017, @01:08PM
There's "I wanna look tacti-cool at the laser tag game" and those guys will pay $15+ per MRE and then at the other extreme of cost there's online like "epicenter mre" I've bought stuff from them and they're going rate is about $80 a case which WRT camping is cheaper than fast food and you get a whole meal for less than a mountain house camping entree. Although mountain house freeze dried stuff is lighter and tastier.
Yeah in theory you can feed a family of 4 for like $4 off the fast food dollar menu, but back on planet earth good luck escaping from a chain like Culvers for less than $30 for a family of 4, which is more expensive than MREs even including shipping. Then again when out camping especially if the weather is bad, going off site to a fast food restaurant is kinda fun. If you were trying to save money you probably wouldn't be on vacation anyway.
Also civilians don't realize it but you can buy single MRE entrees for $2 to $3 if you don't want the whole meal experience and the MRE entrees pack better and the cost isn't too ridiculous, a can of ravioli will be like $1.50 at the store and $2.25 in MRE form, so 75 cents here or there, whatever.
Good luck with food allergies everything is contaminated with wheat and soy and whatnot, its all kinda gross processed stuff.
I live in the "recreational state north" and you can buy MREs for hunting and camping and whatever else at supermarkets and I believe sams club or costco had some last time I was there.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday May 22 2017, @05:58AM
Meals Rejected by Ethiopians :)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @06:38PM
I ate MREs after Hurricane Ivan in 2004. I got mind controlled during the beta testing phase. Thanks, Bushbama!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @09:24PM (1 child)
Someone needs to fix the site so that it doesn't insist on showing the first post if it's below my threshold. Threaded-TOS, threshold 0, breakthrough 1.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @11:14PM
Some of us have to view at -1 because the expand button doesn't work anymore
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @06:22PM (4 children)
1 min to eat all you can. Dehydrated beef or pork patties. Thick Peanut butter or cheese that would leave your shit to a very thick hard to get out variety.
I thought the bread was not bread but some type of crackers very much like crisp matzah.
I could stomach all but the dehydrated pork patties. Luckily in boot our fat bodies got those first so rarely were there any left for the rest of us.
And windrift.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @08:19PM (3 children)
Limeys called it hardtack - hard biscuit, really a thick cracker.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 21 2017, @08:29PM (2 children)
Found a recipe, years ago, and the sons and I made hardtack at home. A couple of attempts were just -mehhh- but we got it right on the third try. Yeah, it's very much like a Saltine cracker, and you can vary the amount of salt you put on them to your taste. Pretty good stuff, actually. Unlike Saltine crackers, they don't go stale unless they get wet. There were batches of the stuff that sat on the pantry shelf for weeks, before being eaten up. No sealed containers, they didn't need them.
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday May 22 2017, @06:01AM (1 child)
Back in the 1970s we discovered a cache of my dad's C-rations from when he was in the Army (1950ish). Opened 'em up and ... dang, the cracker is actually still good. So is the cake of hard cocoa. Don't remember what else was in 'em, but yeah, some things keep forever.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 22 2017, @08:54AM
The Navy still possessed some of those, when I joined. Up until about 1978, you could find some, here and there. They weren't "for issue", but people had caches of them, here and there, that they just never gave up. Of course, by that time, "C-rations" aboard ship had been completely redefined. The galley remained open during General Quarters, where they prepared sandwiches and finger foods that could be distributed to the combat stations. Still - if you only got two or three dinkey little finger sandwiches, and you were still hungry, you could dig into a stash of 30 or 40 year old food.
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday May 21 2017, @06:56PM (5 children)
Napolean supposedly said the quote in the subject line, though it's been attributed to various military leaders over the years. It's clear that such concerns go back to ancient times. Figuring out how to preserve food using various methods and then transport it was paramount for most military campaigns.
This whole discussion reminds me of Herodotus's account of the Persian invasion of Greece. (People today are most likely familiar with the Battle of Thermopylae that was part of that campaign, where the so-called "300 Spartans" held out against a massive Persian force.) Multiple ancient historians put the total number of Persian forces in the millions.
But just a moment's thought will lead you to ask -- an army like that marching over hundreds of miles: what the heck did they EAT? And indeed, the problems of supply are one of the biggest reasons why modern historians discount the huge numbers given in ancient sources. Herodotus discusses the complex preparations for the campaign, where the Persians spent a full four years merely preparing for invasion, including stockpiling sources of food along the path the army would ultimately travel. Herodotus also recounts a debate between Xerxes and his uncle over extending the campaign for too long or over too a great a distance and the inevitably famine that would result. And he notes that the army ultimately "drunk the rivers dry" on their way. Even the lowball estimates of modern historians would still involve hundreds of thousands of ancient folks on the march (including not only the army but all supporting personnel).
I seem to recall some historian referring to the Persian army as a "walking ecological disaster," which sounds about right. I have to imagine that innovative food preservation was also a priority.
Anyhow, back to TFA, it wouldn't surprise me at all if much older methods of food preservation were at some point developed with the needs of supplying large military forces. Very mobile armies (think of the Mongols) came from peoples who were best-known for wide use of preserved foods. The Mongols were known for innovative meat-drying procedures and had a whole litary of preserved/fermented milk products -- often based on mare's milk of the horses they also rode in their armies -- to sustain them. Were the Mongols able to wage far-ranging campaigns because of the "food technology," or did they at some point perfect the preservation methods in order to allow better military campaigns?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Arik on Sunday May 21 2017, @07:34PM (3 children)
The logistics of feeding a large mass of men can be very difficult, of course. Foraging, and looting the locals, only produces so much food. Most big battles even into relatively modern times (this has been shown to be true for the war betwixt the states for instance) were characterized by one or both sides arriving at the battlefield suffering from nutritional deficiencies and quite simply underfed, and performing poorly as a result. Often both sides were practically starving by the time they fought.
And yes, the Mongolians excelled at logistics and that was one of the keys to their success. But not the only one, certainly not. In fact they often fielded significantly *smaller* armies than their opponents, which reduced the strain on their supply lines a bit. They got a ton of mileage out of completely dominating what we might call 'the scout range' - the area between the two armies as they move closer together. Their scouts ruled which meant they could see clearly while their opponents were practically blind. This allowed the mongols to split very large powerful armies into bite-sized pieces and devour them in detail.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 21 2017, @11:20PM
Yeah, but they left us behind in this crappy galaxy with next to none of their cool tech
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday May 22 2017, @01:34AM (1 child)
Yep -- absolutely true. I didn't mean to imply that the Mongol armies only succeeded because of better food supplies. There's a lot of other reasons, as you note. But I was trying to think of other historical examples that might see an intersection between food preservation innovations and unusual military prowess -- and the Mongols immediately came to mind.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday May 23 2017, @12:52AM
Specific adaptions? Horse milk is interesting, mares don't produce a lot but if you have a half-dozen mares for each man I guess it adds up to substantial amounts. I seem to recall some other details but not being sure where I recall them from they may be wrong. Cheese curds, mix with water in a bag, set under saddle at start of day, pull out later for liquid rations? Also opening the veins of their horses and taking a few sips. Kind of grim stuff really, but then... Mongols.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday May 22 2017, @05:50PM
1. Napoleon's Food Preservation Prize (1795) [npr.org]
Napoleon offered 12,000 francs to improve upon the prevailing food preservation methods of the time. Not surprisingly, the purpose was to better feed his army "when an invaded country was not able or inclined to sell or provide food". Fifteen years later, confectioner Nicolas François Appert claimed the prize. He devised a method involving heating, boiling and sealing food in airtight glass jars — the same basic technology still used to can foods.