Food in the military

It takes a lot to feed our troops, both at home and abroad. A lot of organizational complexity, distribution logistics, expense, and calories. (A soldier in the field is allocated a minimum of 1,200 calories per meal.) Some of these meals turn out to be better than others, as you might expect.

Gourmet Magazine recently investigated the world of military food, which is a lot more varied than I would have thought. All military personnel on base have access to a free cafeteria which, if not as elaborate as Google's famous food palace, still offers decent free food. Some bases also have food courts where companies like Starbucks and Subway operate food kiosks where soldiers can buy their meals if they choose.

When deployed in the field, of course, soldiers are faced with the infamous MRE: Meals Ready to Eat. MREs have gone quite high tech in recent years, but they are still the butt of many jokes. It's basically Lunchables for soldiers, and some of their components are more highly prized than others.

It's common practice for soldiers to "field strip" their MREs before going out into the field. You open it up, take out all the stuff you don't like, and discard it. Who wants to pack all the extra weight of food you know you won't eat? And for every person who hates X but loves Y, you can always find someone who loves X but hates Y and is willing to swap.

Best of all, soldiers have come up with ingenious ways to reconfigure their MREs into something more interesting and edible. For example, one soldier reported that he and his comrades would pack some ramen out with them. You heat the ramen up in the MRE's heating unit, add some Ham Slice from a Ham Slice meal, crumble in a cracker and some cheese sauce, and you've got yourself soup.

Wait, I take it back. That's gross. Our troops deserve better!

Image courtesy Flickr/pmsyyz