US Army Plans to Revamp Food Rations

If Napoleon was right about an army marching on its stomach, then the military might of the United States just got a little mightier.

The army is about to go into production with a new concept in food rations: compact meals specifically designed for soldiers who are on the move in two or three day military patrols.

Armies love acronyms, so this invention is called FSR, or First Strike Rations. The FSR is not to be confused with another new creation in culinary warfare - UCR-E, or Unitize Group Ration-Express. They are most comprehensibly described as "kitchens in a box" that self-heat in 40 minutes and can feed and water a group of up to 18 soldiers on the move.

The new products are the latest innovations to emerge from the Combat Feeding Directorate - a team of about 100 biochemists, dietitians, food scientists and packaging experts in Natick, Massachusetts.

Their job is to drag US military cuisine into the 21st century.

Gone are the days of the C-ration, those tin concoctions of desiccated meat, over-boiled eggs and cigarettes that passed as healthy living in the days of M*A*S*H.

In have come gourmet offerings such as blackened catfish, teriyaki chicken and pumpkin cake.

In 1981 the C-rations were replaced by MREs, Meals Ready to Eat, which attempted to make food on the hoof more bearable.

Early versions failed to impress and were dubbed Meals Rejected by the Enemy. The Natick team is so confident it has brought the fare up to scratch it now calls them Meals Respected by Europeans. (There is a third one in circulation - Meals Ready for Ebay, a reflection of the roaring trade in resold army rations on the auction website that the Pentagon has tried in vain to stop.)

MREs remain to some extent the butt of jokes. Al Franken, the left-leaning talk-show host quipped on a trip to entertain the troops in Iraq in 2006 that he had eaten several MREs and "none of them had an exit strategy".

But progress has undoubtedly been made. The Pentagon this week put a range of its new gourmet menu on display, including garlic mashed potatoes, barbecue pork, southwest beef and black beans.

The rations have to meet stringent criteria. They must stay within cost limits of $7.25 a meal, last at least three years at 80 degrees F, and remain edible having been dropped from a helicopter at 100 feet.

The new range of FSRs have already been tested out in Afghanistan. Stephen Moody, who works at Natick, said the packages were designed to be lightweight, yet contain all the calories and protein the soldiers needed.

Each pack contains 3,000 calories that can be eaten on the run, including a pepperoni sandwich, beef jerky, power bars, and this being the US, caffeine-infused chewing gum.