6 ms·

What Soldiers Eat, By Country

29 points by pavs 16y ago

bootload 16y ago
the accompanying article is much better, "A Taste of Home in Foil Packets and Powder" ~ http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/weekinreview/05gilbertson.html?ref=weekinreview http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/weekinreview/05gilbertson.... The bit that caught my eye, "Australians get a dark-brown spreadable yeast-paste treat called Vegemite, for example". I have a picture of the item being described here ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/4961948487/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/4961948487/ which came from a PR1M (Patrol Ration One Man) which I used earlier this year marching 240km for a lost bet on house prices ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/collections/72157623796440209/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/collections/7215762379...
- elblanco 16y ago
  Vegemite is similar to Marmite that's common in Britain and former colonies. It's loaded with vitamins that can be hard to get in certain situations (like when meat is short). It tastes like a combination of steak, Guinness and soy sauce.
  - dazzawazza 16y ago
    > It tastes like a combination of steak, Guinness and soy sauce. That's amazingly accurate except its like a thousand steaks, 1000 pints of Guinness and 1000 litres of soy sauce in a 200ml jar. It's impossible to get over how intense the taste is. Even a wafer thin coating of it is too much on toast.
- silentbicycle 16y ago
  I have two giant jars (910 g/2 lb each!) of Vegemite, one of which is approaching 2/3 empty. It's lovely stuff, though I can understand people hating it - it's concentrated and has an intense flavor, and people who don't know better probably use waaay too much. It tastes kind of like yeasty soy sauce that has been boiled down to a salty, thick black spread (or very dark, mushroomy miso). It's great scratched on buttery toast or grilled cheese, or as part of a soup stock. It's made from beer yeast dregs, and is loaded with umami and B vitamins. I highly recommend adding some to soup stock, especially vegetarian soups. It adds a lot of depth. I haven't ever tried marmite (as elblanco mentions), but everything I've read has made them sound similar. (I'm not Australian. I'm from Michigan, actually...)
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - sliverstorm 16y ago
    > I highly recommend adding some to soup stock, especially vegetarian soups But can vegetarians eat bacteria? They are animals too.
    - silentbicycle 16y ago
      That depends on how neurotic they are. (Laziest trolling ever, PS. Back to slashdot with you.) I'm suggesting it specifically because vegetarian soups tend to have less umami (the savory, "meaty"/MSG flavor). Non-veg cooks can just simmer bones, etc., but vegetarians need to get umami from mushrooms, grilled root vegetables, boiled parmesan reggiano rinds (which are totally awesome, BTW), miso, etc., and vegemite is another option. It's quite cheap (if you buy it in "I'm going backpacking forever and may not make it back to Australia"-sized jars) and keeps forever (what's it going to do...become more salty?), so it's pretty convenient.
      - sliverstorm 16y ago
        Not trolling, I am just amused at the arbitrary lines-in-the-sand I occasionally see vegetarians and vegans drawing, and was curious about their outlook on this matter.
        silentbicycle 16y ago
        A lot of people have identities based on loud-but-poorly-thought-out politics/ideologies. Vocal / recent-convert / squeamish teenage vegetarians are hardly unique in this regard, and nor does it mean that intelligent people haven't arrived at similar conclusions for reasons that aren't vapid. As with most things, though, the loud "I believe so hard in cause X" people tend to drown out the thoughtful ones. (Also, the vegetarians I've known have been more pragmatic than the vegans, who are generally more ideological.) The only group I've seen seriously struggle with the whole "OMG I'm killing bacteria by breathing, what should I do" issue are the Jains, and I find them pretty silly. (I'm not a vegetarian, but when I was...I still found them pretty silly.) Some vegetarians are amazing cooks, too. Constraints can really drive creativity.
elblanco 16y ago
I've spent a fair bit of time on an MRE "diet". I can say from first hand experience that MREs, with their water activated heating pouch (so you can get a hot meal and some hot coffee) are a miracle of modern science. Some of them aren't so good (the bbq pork ribs in the article kinda suck), but some of them are outright amazing. I'd eat the Spicy Penne Pasta any day of the week over most modern frozen dinners. (And the cheese spread in some of the meals is worth fighting over). The biggest problem is always trying to get enough fiber to make sure the 'ol plumbing doesn't get jammed up.
- swah 16y ago
  How are those ingredients organized inside the main plastic bag?
  - elblanco 16y ago
    This has a good layout. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meal,_Ready-to-Eat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meal,_Ready-to-Eat And the changing menus http://www.mreinfo.com/us/mre/mre-menus.html http://www.mreinfo.com/us/mre/mre-menus.html The whole thing comes in thick plastic bag. When you cut it open you get several plastic bags and small cardboard boxes. The flameless heater is just another empty looking plastic bag (lower left in the picture). Inside the boxes are the main parts of the meal inside of sealed tin lined bags (think of them like a flexible can) -- I think the food is pasteurized for long shelf-life. To heat up the food, you put a little water in the heater bag and close it up. You then put one of the courses and the heater bag together into one of the cardboard boxes and the reaction will kick in in a sec and make the heater bag really hot. You wait a couple minutes while it heats up the food and then you can take it out and eat a hot meal. If there are two courses you can then repeat (the heater bag will stay hot for quite a while). Or you can try and heat up some water for instant coffee. Most of the meals also come with a little salt/pepper and Tabasco sauce so you can season to taste (which really helps with the omelet meal which I think they got rid of). Most everything else is designed not to need heating, it's like crackers and peanut butter or something else. There's usually a sports/electrolyte drink or some kind of drink mix fortified with vitamins and such. One thing that the military is really proud of is that these things have like a 3 year shelf life without the use of preservatives. You can actually buy civilian versions (without the heater) http://www.mreinfo.com/civilian/mre/civilian-mres.html http://www.mreinfo.com/civilian/mre/civilian-mres.html
swah 16y ago
From the article: “Combat espresso,” on the other hand, is brutal. The creamer, instant coffee and sugar are poured directly into one’s mouth and then washed down with water.
tlack 16y ago
I feel like applying for a job at the New York Times just so I can fix their terrible Flash-based gallery software which is used in this article and many others recently. Totally kills the otherwise-interesting browsing experience for me. HTML5 would be more than sufficient for this.
- harshpotatoes 16y ago
  I'm curious, but how does flash detract from the browsing experience/ or how would html5 add to the browsing experience? To me it just seems like choosing one programming language over another...
  - tlack 16y ago
    The Flash is buggy; when I mouse over the items, the little label doesn't "unfold" until about 10 seconds after I move my mouse out of the photo. I can see what it's trying to do -- it unfolds for an excruciating split second -- but I can't interact with the movie. HTML works on more devices, requires fewer resources for an application like this, and usually works more reliably in my recent experience. Why use Flash for this interface?
- thechangelog 16y ago
  So would HTML 4.
  - elblanco 16y ago
    Or HTML <insert any version with embeddable images and hypertext links>.
sliverstorm 16y ago
I noticed that a lot of this food is tinged with red or orange- which seems to be because it's high in protein. That got me to thinking- it must be difficult to be a vegetarian or a vegan in the army. Which also got me to thinking- should you have the right to insist on vegetarian/vegan food? Not only is it more expensive and more of a problem to provide, but you are a tool of the army, and you probably do your job for them better when you get enough protein.
- silentbicycle 16y ago
  How are vegetarian protein sources more expensive? Many are quite cheap (if sometimes bland). Most beans keep well and are easy to ship and prepare in bulk, which certainly suits the mess hall. I don't see how it'd be a huge logistics issue (compared to shipping/handling chicken, for example). I've never been in the military, but I've worked in a deli, and handling chicken sucks. Also, the whole vegetarian "protein deficiency" thing has been pretty thoroughly debunked, unless you only eat potato chips. It's surprisingly difficult to eat a diet that won't give you at least a minimum of protein without dying from e.g. pellegra or beri-beri first. (Maybe not enough protein for hardcore bodybuilders, but certainly enough to live well.)
  - elblanco 16y ago
    It's more a problem of people just not eating stuff that's been slogged halfway across the planet and deposited into an active combat zone. So they try to supply menu items that'll get eaten. That being said, there's usually a vegetarian meal in every box of MREs.
    - silentbicycle 16y ago
      Fair enough. I bet a lot of soldiers probably want to eat something that reminds them of home, and dried beans probably rank alongside powdered eggs.
  - leif 16y ago
    The vegan/vegetarian diet problem is very real, and it is not just protein. You can very easily miss out pretty severely on a lot of things just by cutting meat out of your diet (iron, for example), and you do have to work hard to make sure you maintain a balanced diet. I don't see this as a problem for MREs, as composition has been pretty well solved, and I doubt it makes it any harder to solve the perishable problem.
mmaunder 16y ago
Love the moist towelette in the American pack.
swah 16y ago
Is smoking still popular in the field?

29 points by pavs 16y ago

the accompanying article is much better, "A Taste of Home in Foil Packets and Powder" ~ http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/weekinreview/05gilbertson.html?ref=weekinreview http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/weekinreview/05gilbertson.... The bit that caught my eye, "Australians get a dark-brown spreadable yeast-paste treat called Vegemite, for example". I have a picture of the item being described here ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/4961948487/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/4961948487/ which came from a PR1M (Patrol Ration One Man) which I used earlier this year marching 240km for a lost bet on house prices ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/collections/72157623796440209/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/collections/7215762379...

elblanco 16y ago
Vegemite is similar to Marmite that's common in Britain and former colonies. It's loaded with vitamins that can be hard to get in certain situations (like when meat is short). It tastes like a combination of steak, Guinness and soy sauce.
- dazzawazza 16y ago
  > It tastes like a combination of steak, Guinness and soy sauce. That's amazingly accurate except its like a thousand steaks, 1000 pints of Guinness and 1000 litres of soy sauce in a 200ml jar. It's impossible to get over how intense the taste is. Even a wafer thin coating of it is too much on toast.
silentbicycle 16y ago
I have two giant jars (910 g/2 lb each!) of Vegemite, one of which is approaching 2/3 empty. It's lovely stuff, though I can understand people hating it - it's concentrated and has an intense flavor, and people who don't know better probably use waaay too much. It tastes kind of like yeasty soy sauce that has been boiled down to a salty, thick black spread (or very dark, mushroomy miso). It's great scratched on buttery toast or grilled cheese, or as part of a soup stock. It's made from beer yeast dregs, and is loaded with umami and B vitamins. I highly recommend adding some to soup stock, especially vegetarian soups. It adds a lot of depth. I haven't ever tried marmite (as elblanco mentions), but everything I've read has made them sound similar. (I'm not Australian. I'm from Michigan, actually...)
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- sliverstorm 16y ago
  > I highly recommend adding some to soup stock, especially vegetarian soups But can vegetarians eat bacteria? They are animals too.
  - silentbicycle 16y ago
    That depends on how neurotic they are. (Laziest trolling ever, PS. Back to slashdot with you.) I'm suggesting it specifically because vegetarian soups tend to have less umami (the savory, "meaty"/MSG flavor). Non-veg cooks can just simmer bones, etc., but vegetarians need to get umami from mushrooms, grilled root vegetables, boiled parmesan reggiano rinds (which are totally awesome, BTW), miso, etc., and vegemite is another option. It's quite cheap (if you buy it in "I'm going backpacking forever and may not make it back to Australia"-sized jars) and keeps forever (what's it going to do...become more salty?), so it's pretty convenient.
    - sliverstorm 16y ago
      Not trolling, I am just amused at the arbitrary lines-in-the-sand I occasionally see vegetarians and vegans drawing, and was curious about their outlook on this matter.
      - silentbicycle 16y ago
        A lot of people have identities based on loud-but-poorly-thought-out politics/ideologies. Vocal / recent-convert / squeamish teenage vegetarians are hardly unique in this regard, and nor does it mean that intelligent people haven't arrived at similar conclusions for reasons that aren't vapid. As with most things, though, the loud "I believe so hard in cause X" people tend to drown out the thoughtful ones. (Also, the vegetarians I've known have been more pragmatic than the vegans, who are generally more ideological.) The only group I've seen seriously struggle with the whole "OMG I'm killing bacteria by breathing, what should I do" issue are the Jains, and I find them pretty silly. (I'm not a vegetarian, but when I was...I still found them pretty silly.) Some vegetarians are amazing cooks, too. Constraints can really drive creativity.

elblanco 16y ago

I've spent a fair bit of time on an MRE "diet". I can say from first hand experience that MREs, with their water activated heating pouch (so you can get a hot meal and some hot coffee) are a miracle of modern science. Some of them aren't so good (the bbq pork ribs in the article kinda suck), but some of them are outright amazing. I'd eat the Spicy Penne Pasta any day of the week over most modern frozen dinners. (And the cheese spread in some of the meals is worth fighting over). The biggest problem is always trying to get enough fiber to make sure the 'ol plumbing doesn't get jammed up.

swah 16y ago
How are those ingredients organized inside the main plastic bag?
- elblanco 16y ago
  This has a good layout. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meal,_Ready-to-Eat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meal,_Ready-to-Eat And the changing menus http://www.mreinfo.com/us/mre/mre-menus.html http://www.mreinfo.com/us/mre/mre-menus.html The whole thing comes in thick plastic bag. When you cut it open you get several plastic bags and small cardboard boxes. The flameless heater is just another empty looking plastic bag (lower left in the picture). Inside the boxes are the main parts of the meal inside of sealed tin lined bags (think of them like a flexible can) -- I think the food is pasteurized for long shelf-life. To heat up the food, you put a little water in the heater bag and close it up. You then put one of the courses and the heater bag together into one of the cardboard boxes and the reaction will kick in in a sec and make the heater bag really hot. You wait a couple minutes while it heats up the food and then you can take it out and eat a hot meal. If there are two courses you can then repeat (the heater bag will stay hot for quite a while). Or you can try and heat up some water for instant coffee. Most of the meals also come with a little salt/pepper and Tabasco sauce so you can season to taste (which really helps with the omelet meal which I think they got rid of). Most everything else is designed not to need heating, it's like crackers and peanut butter or something else. There's usually a sports/electrolyte drink or some kind of drink mix fortified with vitamins and such. One thing that the military is really proud of is that these things have like a 3 year shelf life without the use of preservatives. You can actually buy civilian versions (without the heater) http://www.mreinfo.com/civilian/mre/civilian-mres.html http://www.mreinfo.com/civilian/mre/civilian-mres.html

swah 16y ago

From the article: “Combat espresso,” on the other hand, is brutal. The creamer, instant coffee and sugar are poured directly into one’s mouth and then washed down with water.

tlack 16y ago

I feel like applying for a job at the New York Times just so I can fix their terrible Flash-based gallery software which is used in this article and many others recently. Totally kills the otherwise-interesting browsing experience for me. HTML5 would be more than sufficient for this.

harshpotatoes 16y ago
I'm curious, but how does flash detract from the browsing experience/ or how would html5 add to the browsing experience? To me it just seems like choosing one programming language over another...
- tlack 16y ago
  The Flash is buggy; when I mouse over the items, the little label doesn't "unfold" until about 10 seconds after I move my mouse out of the photo. I can see what it's trying to do -- it unfolds for an excruciating split second -- but I can't interact with the movie. HTML works on more devices, requires fewer resources for an application like this, and usually works more reliably in my recent experience. Why use Flash for this interface?
thechangelog 16y ago
So would HTML 4.
- elblanco 16y ago
  Or HTML <insert any version with embeddable images and hypertext links>.

sliverstorm 16y ago

I noticed that a lot of this food is tinged with red or orange- which seems to be because it's high in protein. That got me to thinking- it must be difficult to be a vegetarian or a vegan in the army. Which also got me to thinking- should you have the right to insist on vegetarian/vegan food? Not only is it more expensive and more of a problem to provide, but you are a tool of the army, and you probably do your job for them better when you get enough protein.

silentbicycle 16y ago
How are vegetarian protein sources more expensive? Many are quite cheap (if sometimes bland). Most beans keep well and are easy to ship and prepare in bulk, which certainly suits the mess hall. I don't see how it'd be a huge logistics issue (compared to shipping/handling chicken, for example). I've never been in the military, but I've worked in a deli, and handling chicken sucks. Also, the whole vegetarian "protein deficiency" thing has been pretty thoroughly debunked, unless you only eat potato chips. It's surprisingly difficult to eat a diet that won't give you at least a minimum of protein without dying from e.g. pellegra or beri-beri first. (Maybe not enough protein for hardcore bodybuilders, but certainly enough to live well.)
- elblanco 16y ago
  It's more a problem of people just not eating stuff that's been slogged halfway across the planet and deposited into an active combat zone. So they try to supply menu items that'll get eaten. That being said, there's usually a vegetarian meal in every box of MREs.
  - silentbicycle 16y ago
    Fair enough. I bet a lot of soldiers probably want to eat something that reminds them of home, and dried beans probably rank alongside powdered eggs.
- leif 16y ago
  The vegan/vegetarian diet problem is very real, and it is not just protein. You can very easily miss out pretty severely on a lot of things just by cutting meat out of your diet (iron, for example), and you do have to work hard to make sure you maintain a balanced diet. I don't see this as a problem for MREs, as composition has been pretty well solved, and I doubt it makes it any harder to solve the perishable problem.

mmaunder 16y ago

Love the moist towelette in the American pack.

swah 16y ago

Is smoking still popular in the field?