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BY XANDE ANDERER
A good meal, first and foremost, must be served hot. And
this meal is very hot. Rolling waves of steam sweep upward,
filling the air with the aroma of garlic and paprika. Dinner
tonight is sausage and spicy Cajun rice. There’s
almond poppyseed pound cake for dessert and hot chai tea.
Where, pray tell, is this meal is being served? Vietnam-era
C-Ration Entrees
Beef Steak
Ham and Eggs, Chopped
Ham Slices
Turkey Loaf
Beans and Wieners
Spaghetti and Meatballs
Beefsteak, Potatoes and Gravy
Ham and Lima Beans
Meatballs and Beans
Boned Chicken
Chicken and Egg Noodles
Meat Loaf
Spiced Beef
2008 MRE Entrees
Chili w/Beans
Pork Rib
Beef Ravioli
Chicken Breast
Chicken w/Noodles
Beef Stew
Meatloaf w/Gravy
Beef Patty
Chili & Macaroni
Chicken Fajita
Vegetable Lasagna
Sloppy Joe Filling
Tuna in Pouch
Beef Enchilada
Spicy Penne Pasta
Cheese Tortellini
Meatballs w/Marinara
Chicken w/Salsa
Chicken w/Dumplings
Chicken Pesto & Pasta
Cheese & Veggie Omelet
Pot Roast w/Vegetables
Spaghetti w/Meat Sauce
Veggieburger w/BBQ Sauce
Would you
believe on a remote mountain pass in Afghanistan’s
Paktika Province?
The age-old maxim holds that an army moves
on its stomach. But soldiers from the Napoleonic Wars to
Vietnam were forced to eat essentially the same tins of meat
and beans. That has all changed in recent years as scientists
and nutritionists have joined forces to make extraordinary
changes in what American soldiers eat in the field.
To see just how far battlefield
rations have come in recent years, you only need to see how
little it improved over its first 170 years.
The canning process was the answer to a 19th
century military challenge from Napoleon himself. Concerned
about rampant malnutrition plaguing his French forces, Napoleon
longed for a means of preserving food for his planned campaign
into Russia. He offered a prize of 12,000 francs to the person
who could do it. After several years of experimentation,
a Parisian confectioner, Nicolas Appert, submitted his solution
and won the prize in 1810.
The causes of spoilage were not
known at the time, but Appert had observed that wine sealed
in airtight glass bottles did not spoil. He experimented
with various glass bottles filled with foods such as beef,
fowl, eggs, milk, and prepared entrées.
(For publicity, he once prepared an entire mutton). Appert’s
perfected process employed a vise to insert corks firmly
into heavy, large-mouthed bottles, with an air space left
at the top. The bottles were then wrapped in canvas for protection
and dropped into boiling water until the contents were thoroughly
cooked. A more “soldier-proof” tin can replaced
glass shortly thereafter.
Appert’s method was both simple
and practical, and it gained quick acceptance by French forces.
By the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the armies and
navies of both France and the opposing coalition forces were
carrying canned food into combat.
From that point forward, “tinned” food
became essential to military campaigns and explorations alike.
Canned meat and stew were carried on expeditions to the Far
East, Africa, and both Poles. The demands of the large-scale
wars of the nineteenth century—the Crimean War, the
American Civil War, and the Franco-Prussian War—fostered
improvements in the mass production of military rations.
But they did little to change the type and quality of the
chow itself. Soldiers in the American Civil War told stories
of waiting until dark so they wouldn’t have to see
their rations while they ate them.
Despite the progress made in manufacturing
rations, the soldiers ate the same “hog and hominy” as
soldiers had before them.
During World War I, the demand for huge quantities
of cheap, high-calorie food to feed millions of soldiers
was immense. Armies struggled with the sheer logistics of
securing food that could survive trench conditions and not
spoil between the factory and the front lines. The soldiers
generally subsisted on extremely low-quality tinned foods,
such as the British “Bully
Beef” (cheap corned beef) and something called Maconochies
Irish Stew.
As the war reached a stalemate and troops bogged
down into trench warfare, two armies attempted to improve
morale with better-quality food: In 1917, the French Army
attempted to issue a more “French” assortment
of dishes, such as coq au vin, in their tins. The Italians
experimented with canned ravioli and spaghetti with mediocre
results. The British Army dealt with canned food shortages
simply by issuing cigarettes to suppress appetites.
Latecomers to the action, American
soldiers survived on hastily prepared “trench rations” consisting
almost always of a one-pound can of corned beef, two tins
of hard bread, a teaspoon each of sugar and salt, ground
coffee, and cigarettes. Although this trench ration was intended
to be prepared as a hot meal, it seldom was. Packed in unwieldly
cylindrical cans, each meal weighed about two pounds and
contained about 3,300 calories. Although durable and well-protected
from poison gas, the cans were heavy and difficult to handle.
And nutritionally they were completely inadequate.
A slightly
more nutritionally balanced combat ration was adopted by
the U.S. military just before World War II. This was when
the “Meal, Combat Individual,” or “C-Ration,” arrived
on the scene: 4,500-calorie meals of meat and beans, meat-and-vegetable
hash, or meat-and-vegetable stew, packed into six 12-ounce
cans. While C-Rations were designed for only a few days’ use,
the reality of warfare meant soldiers often ate them for
days or weeks on end. Complaints naturally ensued, though
the military was pleased with the combination of portability
and economy.
At the height of the war in 1944, over 105 million
C-Rations had been produced. This measure of success ensured
the C-Ration would live a long life—remaining fundamentally
unchanged through the Korean and Vietnam Wars.
By the time of Vietnam,
C-Rations had been expanded to twelve standard Combat Meals
and included canned fruit, candy, and crackers. The meals
still were designed without regard for nutrition or variety.
The C-Ration was never intended to lift a soldier’s
spirit or delight his palette. It was the most basic form
of nourishment, intended solely to keep a soldier from starving
in the field.
One Vietnam veteran
recalled: “It seemed like the military
had the same philosophy as my mother—‘You’ll
eat whatever I cook.’ The only difference is my mother
never fixed anything as bad as Ham and Muthas.”
Each
individual C-Ration was made up of six cans: three M-Units
containing a canned entrée, three B-units containing
cheese, crackers, and candy, and a canned dessert. A foil
accessory pack with drink mix, salt, sugar packets, a plastic
spoon, a pack of four cigarettes, and several sheets of toilet
paper also was included. Three or four of the venerable P-38
can openers—purportedly named for the 38 punches required
to open a can—were packed loose in each case of 12
meals. Most ended up worn around GIs’ necks on their
dog tag chains.
The sheer inconvenience of a meal that required
38 punches to open and a separate heat source to prepare
would almost certainly seem absurd to any soldier in today’s
military.
There
was, however, a hint of what was on the horizon: Lurpfood.
First issued in 1964, the LRRP ration, or Lurpfood, was a
surprisingly lightweight, compact ration that did away with
the cans. The meals had been designed specifically for Long-Range
Reconnaissance Patrols (LRRPs) who found the standard C-Ration
far too heavy. The packets weighed eleven ounces—approximately
a third of the weight of a C-Ration.
They were built around
one of eight precooked, freeze-dried entrées in a
vacuum-sealed “reconstitution package,” which
became a hot meal with the addition of hot water. Though
the meals were intended to be hydrated, they could be eaten
dry if necessary. Menus included much more appetizing fare:
chili, chicken stew, and even freeze-dried ice cream. They
were very well received in the field.
LRRP patrols passing
though rear areas brought the rations with them, sharing
them with the amazed GIs stationed there.
To
a regular GI accustomed to eating beans and dicks from a
hot tin, Lurpfood seemed like a futuristic wonder. “You
have to understand,” explained one veteran, “at
that time we hadn’t seen anything like it. There was
no such thing as freeze-dried ice cream or cup o’ ramen
yet. This was spaceman stuff.”
Upon their return to
the world, many of the men who had lived on these rations
for up to ten days at a time wrote to the Army Quartermaster.
They wanted to purchase some for use on hunting and camping
trips. It was this “highly acceptable” response
to the LRRP ration that prompted the military to consider
overhauling its menu and led to a completely different approach
to field rations.
After several key breakthroughs in food
preparation and packaging developed under the DoD Combat
Feeding Directorate, the U.S. military unveiled “Meals
Ready to Eat,” or MREs,
in 1980, and began to phase out the C-Ration.
“In the beginning, we called them ‘three lies
for the price of one,’” said one senior Army
NCO who served in both Operation Desert Storm and Operation
Iraqi Freedom. “It wasn’t a meal. It wasn’t
ready, and you sure couldn’t eat it.”
The twelve
entrées offered in the original version
of the MRE left much to be desired. But they did spawn a
renaissance of clever nicknames: Meals Rejected by Everyone,
Meals Rarely Edible, Morsels Rejected in Ethiopia. Several
early entrées earned their own nicknames. Perhaps
most famous were the sealed packets of four hot dogs in gelatin,
which quickly became known as “the four fingers of
death.”
“Nasty things like tuna casserole and ham log just
didn’t do it for us. We were better off chucking them
and saving ourselves the weight,” said one Desert Storm
veteran.
But steady improvements over the next ten years fine-tuned
the meals to correspond to the tastes of an ethnically diverse
fast-food generation raised on Tex-Mex, Asian, and Cajun
food. And along the way, the military made important realizations
about the positive impact of better chow on morale in the
field.
“In hindsight it seems obvious, but prior to the Combat
Feeding Directorate, no one had bothered to study the correlation
between the variety of ration foods and troop morale,” said
dietitian Judy Aylward, senior food technologist and MRE
Project Team Leader.
Since 1954, the job of determining what
a GI will eat in the field has fallen on the food technologists
of the Combat Feeding Program at the U.S. Army Soldier Support
Center in Natick, Massachusetts. Today, Natick food scientists
don’t
just test the food in the lab. They field-test them, sending
potential new MRE selections out with units conducting field
exercises. The troops in the field have final say about which
meals make the cut.
“God only knows why the DoD thought a modern army could
move on ham loaf and weenies,” Aylward said. “With
the modern MREs, we actually asked our men and women in uniform
what they wanted to eat and had them taste-test the products
until acceptable versions were created.”
Clearly the days of “you’ll eat what I serve
you” were coming to an end.
However, the researchers
at Natick found the task of overhauling the MRE a major challenge:
develop a tasty, well-balanced meal in a compact, air- and
watertight package, which can survive up to three years stored
at 80 degrees, resist vermin, bacteria, and the shock of
a 10,000-foot airdrop, plus remain as fresh as the day it
was prepared three years later. It was no small feat.
Then
there was the new-found emphasis on nutrition. These nutritional
demands, outlined in the eight-page Nutritional Standards
for Operational Ratios, stipulate that each meal contain
about 1,250 calories, with enough carbohydrate, fat, protein,
and vitamins to satisfy the Office of the Surgeon General’s
nutritional requirements. Three meals a day gives each military
man or women about 3,750 calories a day—nearly
twice the 2,000 calories most of us should eat to stay fit.
Each
tan plastic MRE bag now contains an eight-ounce main course
(packaged in a four-layer plastic and foil laminate retort
pouch), eight hard military crackers, some form of spread
(cheese, peanut butter, or jelly), a fruit-based beverage
powder, some form of dessert (cake, candy, cookies, or fruit),
and an accessory packet containing coffee or tea, creamer,
sugar, salt, matches, a plastic spoon, and toilet paper.
A
P-38 is no longer required.
This new, improved brand of
MREs doubles the number of meals offered from twelve to twenty-four,
with new items rotated in every year for variety. Four vegetarian
options, including cheese tortellini and pasta Alfredo, are
available. Kosher and Halal menus also are available.
When finally asked what
they’d really like to eat,
soldiers said resoundingly they wanted spicier, ethnic foods.
So now some MREs feature Thai chicken, Jamaican pork chops,
or Mexican macaroni. Tiny Tabasco bottles are included in
every meal.
“It’s a never-ending process here to develop
and field the very best combat rations possible,” said
Janice Rosado, a food technologist at Natick. “We listen
closely now to what the warfighters tell us they want, and
we do our best to give it to them.”
Powdered cappuccino
and chai tea are replacing freeze-dried coffee. A powdered
Gatorade-type drink is included for quick energy. The military
even has developed its own power bar, called the HooAH! Some
rations contain dried versions of milk shakes in chocolate,
strawberry, or vanilla.
Another
change is the military’s deeply entrenched
belief that it could create its own suitable substitutes
for familiar foods. Such familiar products as Oreos, Twizzlers,
and Cheez-Its are now included in MREs whenever possible. “Name-brand
recognition provides a little bit of home to the warfighter,
which especially helps to improve morale,” Aylward
said.
And the cigarettes have been gone since 1975.
Perhaps the
biggest breakthrough brought about by the MRE is the manner
in which soldiers heat their food in the field. Meals no
longer have to be eaten cold or soaked in tubs of hot water.
Since 1993, cooking has been done via the FRH, or flameless
ration heater. An ingenious flameless chemical heating sheet
inside a plastic sheath, it is activated by simply pouring
in an ounce of water. In less than ten minutes, the food
inside has been heated to 212°.
Most soldiers
understand the significance of this development. “It
makes a huge difference to have piping hot food so fast,” one
new veteran said.
As in any war, certain myths persist. Just as soldiers in
Vietnam felt eating canned apricots was bad luck, soldiers
in the current war circulate their own mythology. The Army
insists MREs do not contain saltpeter to suppress a soldier’s
libido. The gum in the MRE is a not a laxative, and the nutritionists
at Natick deny that the meal has been designed to cause constipation
among soldiers in the field (although there is some evidence
that an MRE’s low-moisture content may have such an
effect on those already suffering from dehydration.)
Despite
the great strides made in military cuisine in the last dozen
years, the work of the scientists at Natick is far from complete.
New dishes generally take two-and-a-half years to develop,
test, and approve. With new dishes rotated into the lineup
every year, the technicians already are at work on 2010’s
menu.
Exploration is also under way to
study the use of probiotics (the beneficial bacteria found
in items such as yogurt) or nutraceuticals (small nutritional
organic molecules). The addition of these microscopic additives
may improve nutrition and enhance soldiers’ cognitive
and physical performance.
Perhaps
the best measure of the success of the DoD Combat Feeding
Directorate is the recent rash of MREs appearing for sale
on online auction sites. Although each MRE is stamped with
the warning “U.S. Government Property: Commercial
Resale is Unlawful,” a carton of MREs can fetch as
much as $65 on line.
The much-maligned MRE, which spawned
so many pernicious nicknames, may actually now stand for “Meals
Resold on eBay.”
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2011, Vietnam Veterans of America. All Rights Reserved. 8719 Colesville Road, Suite 100, Silver Spring, MD 20910