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An Army travels on its stomach. So goes the old saw, and it certainly seems to hold water.
In a sense, hikers and campers have similar needs, since they too must traverse through field and dale with only the food that they can comfortably carry with them to meet their nutritional requirements.
For the Army that does indeed travel on its stomach, the U.S. Government is in the business of providing them with portable meals that are filling, nutritious and varied in taste and flavor to keep their spirits and their energy up.
These cardboard-boxed wonders are called Meals Ready To Eat (MREs), and they are regulation military issue to all personnel on active field duty.
The MRE carries a space program pedigree, as it was NASA that originally gave birth to the concept. Although the astronauts still utilize a form of MRE in their line of work, it is the military that have picked up the ball and run with it.
Today, MREs are formulated by the Department of Defense’s Combat Feeding Directorate (CFD).
While the rocket scientists at NASA continue to work on newer versions of TANG, the nutritional scientists at CFD are responsible for developing a constantly changing array of meals, snacks, desserts, appetizers and side dishes that take about two years from conception to field availability.
Recent upgrades and enhancements to the MRE program include the addition of flameless heaters to all meals and “wet pack” fruits replacing dried fruit packs.
The suitability of the MRE for soldiers and campers, and of course camping soldiers, is their portability, their complete nutritional value and most distinctly the “Ready To Eat” part, in that no cooking or other preparatory functions are required to consume the meal properly.
The military has discovered that including name brand food items in MREs is welcomed by our fighting forces. For any MRE or component to pass muster, it must be shelf stable for three years at 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and six months at 100 degrees.
This generous shelf life makes the MRE an ideal inventory item for the army/navy retailer and a worry-free purchase for the consumer.
There are usually 24 different full-course meals available at any given time in the MRE program, and new meals are constantly rotated into the plan.
