The Future of MREs 335
jonerik writes: "MSNBC features this article today about scientists at Washington State University who are attempting to perfect a way to add two staples of American cuisine - eggs and macaroni & cheese - to the US military's MRE ration packs. The problem has been that MREs need to have a shelf life of three years. The scientists have focused on microwaving the rations during the packaging process instead of the traditional method of boiling the contents (which alters the smell and color of eggs and cheese and makes pasta soggy)."
Re:Reason? (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, it's not any more wasteful than spending money designing and creating newer and bigger SUVs or creating and marketing XBoxes.
They already have pasta and cheese (Score:2, Insightful)
Look at menus [dla.mil] 10, 11 14 and especially 13.
How come Cheese Tortellini doesn't suffer from the same problems as Mac&Cheese as described in the article (pasta goes mushy, cheese tastes burnt) ?
Oh, no! They are going to ruin a(pretty bad) thing (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oh, no! They are going to ruin a(pretty bad) th (Score:4, Insightful)
I served as an OPFOR Support Platoon Leader at the National Training Center at Ft. Irwin, CA. Unfortuantely for guys like you, the chains-of-command of visiting units (especially Guard units) were too lazy to bother to get hot food, and would just go for an entire 3-4 weeks on MRE-only for their soldiers because its an easy out. Don't take this as an accusation or anything against you and your unit, I just think its a shame that the Army has spent millions of dollars working on ways to get fresh food for Joe, and most leaders choose to just use MREs.
The US Army has mobile kitchens, and tons of creative ways of getting hot chow to soldiers, unfortunately most of the officers are too lazy to coordinate that kind of support.
Now there is a difference when training for war and just being stupid, but after an extended period of time, the nutrition of troops becomes highly important. MREs are meant as a supplement to regular meals - we usually went Hot-MRE-Hot for Break/Lunch/Dinner, for normal missions, and used that as a baseline.
Naturally that changes according to the mission, but you'd be suprised at how many REMFS (Rear-echelon motherfuckes) would rather say "We'll go all-MRE" because they are too lazy to plan hot food for their soldiers.
Re:ughhh... not everyone eats meat (Score:2, Insightful)
Cripes. PC is nice, and all, but this is a little extreme. About the only real choice you had in boot camp was to holler for what kind of meat you wanted. Didn't want either? Better eat something to give you energy while your Company Commander makes you drop.
Ah, the memories...
Re:ughhh... not everyone eats meat (Score:3, Insightful)
Happy soldiers are better soldiers. The idea that enforced misery makes better soldiers has historically been a popular one in a lot of armies, but every time the US military has come up against one of those armies, we've beaten the hell out of them (e.g., the Iraqis. The Iraqi POW's I took care of lived better under our care than they ever had in their own army in peacetime. Probably one reason they were so eager to surrender.)
-- US Army infantryman 1987-1989, US Air Force medic 1989-1997
The future of MRE's should be a dead-end (Score:2, Insightful)
It seems like a joke for them to try to figure out how to include eggs and such when it seems clear they have quite a bit of work to do to even make the current MREs better than dog food.
Re:Why is military stuff always on Slashdot??!?! (Score:4, Insightful)
Especially in the Air Force & Navy -- if you are in a Comm unit, you essentially have a "white collar" job. Air Force personnel dont get up at oh dark hundred hours in the morning to run, they wait until 3 weeks before the yearly fitness test to get in shape. (I can speak from personal experience here
In short, dont forget the first computers where designed for military purposes, the first PC (Altair) was designed by an Air Force engineer.
These military guys and gals know there stuff and take *pride* in what they do (ideas that may be to old-fashioned to many on this site, but it works in the military, trust me)
So yeah military postings do have a hell of alot of relevance to this site.