This gets even more challenging when an army is expeditionary, that is, when they are asked to move over long distances far from their home. One of the most difficult of these logistical burdens is providing the quantity and quality of food required to sustain an army. Feeding an army is a daunting task.
So much so, that for centuries the emphasis was on simply providing enough food to keep soldiers alive. Eventually, nutrition science provided information on how food could be used to prevent disease, improve performance, and promote well-being.
The most modern military forces are no longer satisfied with providing enough food to feed an army, but are endeavoring to provide the right food to optimize their physical, cognitive, and emotional condition.
For the US Armed Forces, military feeding has evolved greatly in the last century. Changes have been driven by new discoveries in nutritional biochemistry and behavioral science, innovative food processing technologies, diverse operating environments, and revised military strategies.
Each of those factors has played a significant role in how the US military sustains its forces both at home and abroad. Skip to main content. This service is more advanced with JavaScript available. Advertisement Hide. Authors Authors and affiliations Stephen M. Reference work entry First Online: 22 May This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access. Arcidiacono, S. The current state and future direction of DoD gut microbiome research: A summary of the first DoD gut microbiome informational meeting.
Standards in Genomic Sciences, 13 , 5. Baines, E. Accessed 22 Dec Capaldi, E. Why we eat what we eat: The psychology of eating. Google Scholar. Cardello, A. Consumer and sensory testing of rations.
Cardello Eds. Lancaster: DEStech Publications. The earliest rations of the United States Army were all-inclusive in purpose. For more than a century after , the basis of all troop feeding—for soldiers in camp, on the march, in action, or just surviving—was the simple fare of meat and bread, and sometimes vegetables, known as the garrison ration. From the Revolutionary War to World War I, the garrison ration served the unit, the small group, and the individual.
Moreover, it was intended to serve them in organized messes, in isolated groups, and in individual situations of combat and survival.
Depending on the availability of supplies, other occasional variations were provided from time to time. Immediately after the Revolutionary War, the issue of meat was reduced and fresh foods virtually disappeared from the ration. The changes were not without their effect on the health of the soldier nor was this result to go unnoticed.
Benjamin Rush, Army Surgeon in , and others, complained of the lack of fresh vegetables and pointed out that more soldiers died from sickness than were killed by the sword. Some attempt was made after the Revolution to increase the fare of the soldier serving on the frontier. In recognition of the severity of frontier life, Congress, in , authorized the issue of additional amounts of flour or bread, beef, pork, and salt as supplementary items to the regular garrison ration.
That the Army ration shall be increased as follows viz: Twenty-two ounces of bread or flour, or one pound of hard bread, instead of the present issue; fresh beef shall be issued as often as the commanding officer of any detachment or regiment shall require it, when practicable, in place of salt meat; beans and rice or hominy shall be issued in the same ration in the proportions now provided by the regulation, and one pound of potatoes per man shall be issued at least three times a week, if practicable, and when these articles cannot be issued in those proportions, an equivalent in value shall be issued in some other proper food, and a ration of tea may be substituted for a ration of coffee upon the requisition of the proper officer.
Provided, that after the present insurrection shall cease the ration shall be as provided by law and regulations on the first day of July, The principle of soldier-acceptance of foods-now a cardinal requirement for Army rations-was given recognition during the Civil War. In varying proportions based on rations, he was provided with potatoes, peas, beans or rice; coffee or tea; sugar; vinegar; salt and pepper; candles; and soap.
On campaigns or marches, corn meal and hard bread were issued. During the Indian campaigns of the period , the rations, still based on the pattern inherited from the Civil War, were described as monotonous, unpalatable, and clumsy.
The generally good health of the frontier soldier was attributed less to the ration than to vigorous life in the open, hard work and physical exercise, and ability to adapt the bounty of the countryside to his needs. When fresh foods were not available, the nutritional inadequacy of the ration could and did result in scurvy and other ailments.
In some instances, permanent garrisons made attempts at gardening and farming in order to supplement the ration with fresh vegetables. Desiccated and dehydrated vegetables also were supplied to troops on the frontier and the items-dried onions, cabbage, beets, turnips, carrots, and green peppers-generally were well received. An historical account described the process of making pemmican as follows:.
This food [pemmican], called wasna by the Dakota Sioux, was made by pounding buffalo meat into shreds, mixing dried berries or wild choke cherries into the meat, stuffing it into a hide bag, and sealing the bag with melted tallow. The choke cherries were usually pounded, stones and all, into the dried buffalo meat. Wild plums, gooseberries, and currants were also used in the pemmican and it has been asserted that grasshoppers were included in some recipes-probably to increase the range of amino acids available or otherwise fortify the product.
Jerked beef and pinole were other Indian items adopted for Army use on the frontier during this era. Their manufacture was described in the following fashion:. Jerked beef is simply strips of lean beef hung out in the air of dry climate until nearly all of the moisture disappears, while the nutritive parts remain. Like the jerked beef, it is deprived of most of its moisture. During the Spanish-American. War, the prescribed ration was beef or its equivalent , flour or bread, baking powder, beans, potatoes fresh , green coffee, sugar, vinegar, salt, pepper, soap, and candles.
Progress in the preparation, handling, shipping, and storage of foods was then considered to be sufficiently advanced to justify the procurement of large supplies of fresh and canned meats. The spoilage of great quantities of those items, with deleterious effects on the health of the soldier, remains a controversial blot on the military subsistence record.
The lack or spoilage of fresh foods was at least a contributory cause to mortality statistics, which showed that fourteen soldiers died from illness and disease for every one who died from battle causes.
Special rations for specific purposes may be said to have originated in definitions of rations issued by the Army in Rations were then divided into five categories:. For troops when traveling otherwise than marching, or when for short periods they are separated from cooking facilities travel ration. The standard items listed for troops in garrison included fresh beef; flour; beans and potatoes; prunes; coffee and sugar; vinegar, salt, and pepper; and soap and candles.
Fresh mutton, bacon, canned meats, and dried, pickled, and canned fish were to be used when it was impracticable to secure the standard items. The field ration included the basic components of the garrison ration-meat, bread, vegetables, fruit, coffee and sugar, seasoning, and soap and candle.
Substitutes included fresh mutton, canned meat and bacon; soft and hard bread; hops and dried or compressed yeast; rice, onions, desiccated potatoes and onions, and canned tomatoes; tea; and cucumber pickles.
Soft or hard bread, canned corned beef, baked beans, tomatoes; roasted and ground coffee, and sugar were provided for troops traveling otherwise than by marching.
Food for troops on transports was to be prepared from garrison subsistence stores varied, when required, by the substitution of other authorized articles of equal money value. The emergency ration was for issue on active campaigns only when regular rations were unobtainable. It was a packaged ration carried in haversack or saddlebag. Its form and substance were determined by the War Department. The components of garrison and field rations were revised again in when corned beef was authorized for the garrison ration when fresh meat was not available.
Chicken or turkey was approved for issue on national holidays. Fresh vegetables were to be issued when obtainable in the vicinity or when they could be transported in a wholesome condition from a distance. Evaporated and unsweetened milk were other important additions. Thus, throughout the early wars of the nation, from the Revolution to World War I, the chief food for the soldier for all purposes-in camp, field, and combat-was the Congress-enacted garrison ration, which consisted basically of meat, bread, and some vegetables.
In its gradual development, it came to include some of the newer components provided by progress in food technology. Although the garrison ration was the backbone of the feeding program, the necessity of special foods for extraordinary conditions of warfare or military campaigns was not overlooked.
The advent of World War I, with its tremendous accent on mass movement and mass supply to far-off centers, brought to life those concepts of specialized rations with which this history will deal.
Some of the wartime rations had prototypes or genesis in the earlier programs. Nevertheless, it was the great development in the production, distribution, and storage of food that came after the turn of the century that laid the basis for special-purpose rations.
The problem of feeding the soldier, engaged in military activities at home and at many and varied points throughout the world, was to become a problem of specialization. Its solution was to require the combined efforts of science, the food industry, and the food supply services of the military establishment.
Three special-purpose rations came into general use in World War I-the reserve ration, the trench ration, and the emergency ration. The reserve ration, which sought to provide a complete food allowance for one man for one day, included a one-pound can of meat usually corned beef , two 8-ounce tins of hard bread, 2.
The food was considered ample and satisfying but the packaging, in cylindrical cans of one-pound capacity, was far from practical or economical. As its name implies, the trench ration was designed to provide subsistence under conditions of trench warfare.
The unit consisted of sufficient canned meats and canned hard bread to provide 25 men with food for one day. The canned meats were roast beef, corned beef, salmon, and sardines. Other components included salt, sugar, soluble coffee, solidified alcohol, and cigarettes. The unit was packed in large, galvanized containers designed to protect contents from poison gas.
The ration had the advantage of convenience, afforded excellent protection against poison gas, and provided a wider diet than the reserve ration.
Its disadvantages were an excessive use of iron and tinplate, which made it heavy and difficult to handle; the unsuitability of the units for a single meal; the invitation to spoilage and contamination offered by opened containers; and its nutritional inadequacy. It consisted of three 3-ounce cakes of a mixture of beef powder and cooked wheat and three one-ounce chocolate bars.
At the time of the Armistice, about two million rations had been shipped to France. Some of the emergency rations procured in World War I were subsequently used by aircraft pilots on Mexican border patrols, a usage which suggests that the item has some claim to parentage of modern Air Force flight rations. In retrospect, the development and utilization of the reserve, trench, and emergency rations provided ample evidence that special types of rations were required for special military situations.
It was recognition of this need that gave impetus to the ration development program which reached its high point during World War II when United States troops, and their feeding problems, were found in every corner of the world. While the trench ration died a natural death and the emergency ration became obsolete, some attention was given by the Quartermaster Corps to further development of the reserve ration.
In , it was suggested that the ration could be improved by making its container easier to carry, by dividing the unit into separate meals, by adding chocolate, and by replacing roasted and ground coffee with the soluble variety. There were, however, no suggestions for radical departures from the basic pattern of canned meat, tinned bread, and beverage.
Attempts by the Quartermaster Corps Subsistence School 20 to improve the ration did produce an Army specification for the item in The meat was packed in two small, sardine-type cans, each about 1 by 4 by 4 inches in size. There were two tins for the bread, chocolate, and coffee, each tin about 1 by 2 by 8 inches in size.
The components were packed in a unit carton overwrapped with oiled paper. The reserve ration was revised again in when the quantity of bread and corned beef was reduced and the dried beef was replaced by pork and beans.
Oblong cans were still specified, although it was known that quantity production of that item was impossible. In , the Army War College called the revised ration superior, termed its keeping qualities excellent, and pointed to the high degree of its utility. Four years later, the newly created Quartermaster Subsistence Research and Development Laboratory23 produced an experimental pack of a reserve ration containing an A unit with corned beef and a B unit with pork and beans.
There was no change in the remaining components-the planners stood pat on hard bread, soluble coffee, chocolate, sugar, and cylindrical can. This meager bit of postwar experimentation, aimed at improving the one special ration then possessed by the Army, soon faded before the import of new tactical doctrines, relying on masses of airplanes and fast-moving tanks, that altered the entire concept of warfare and of special rations.
Trench rations gave way to foods that could be utilized on the move. The development of such rations was beginning to take form in just as the specter of war began to loom over Europe. The period beginning in marked the inauguration of modem ration research. The impetus for this development was the impending threat of war; the means of development were provided by the Quartermaster Subsistence Research and Development Laboratory whose birth in chronicled the start of the modern era of ration research.
In the next five years, the Laboratory produced two new rations-Field Ration D and Field Ration C-and, more important, laid the foundation for the wartime program. An emergency ration, proposed for the cavalry in , is generally considered the direct forerunner of Field Ration D.
The item then suggested was a ounce bar of equal parts of bitter chocolate, sugar, and peanut butter. Although palatable, the experimental bar had poor keeping qualities, was thirst-provoking, and had poor acceptance.
While it did not progress beyond the experimental stage, it did provide groundwork for experiments on -a concentrated ration which were initiated by the Subsistence School in Originally, the development was called the Logan bar in recognition of Col. Paul Logan, then head of the Subsistence School. The Logan bar was designed to provide the highest possible caloric value in the smallest package and yet retain sufficient palatability to be used daily.
Its ingredients were chocolate, sugar, oat flour, cacao fat, skim milk powder, and artificial flavoring. Three 4-ounce bars-wrapped in aluminum foil, then overwrapped and sealed in parchment paper-constituted a ration.
Despite the requirement that it qualify for continued daily use, the Logan bar was never considered by its developers for other than emergency or stopgap purposes. It was procured on an experimental basis in and was submitted for field trials during the ensuing year.
The spirited discussion of the conflicting concept of the new ration implied in this dual designation had the happy result of bringing about a revision of the Army regulation covering rations and of identifying the bar as Field Ration D, the official emergency ration. By June of , a tentative specification had been written and the Army was in position to inaugurate large-scale procurement of D bars. Trial production brought refinements to the method of manufacture but wrought no basic change in original structure and composition.
Full-scale production was initiated in and monthly output swelled from , in September to ten million a year later. This ration resulted from prewar attempts to produce a stable, palatable, nutritionally balanced combat ration which would provide the individual soldier with three full meals per day. McReynolds proposed to supplement the reserve ration with a complete meal-such as beef stew, beef with noodles, family-style dinner, lamb stew, and Irish stew-packaged in ounce rectangular cans.
By June , this plan evolved into a proposed ration which was to consist of three meat units and three bread units. By , the Laboratory had proposed ten varieties of meat combinations for the ration.
Also it recommended that the ounce rectangular can be discontinued and that the ration units be packaged in ounce cylindrical cans.
Thus increased, the six-can ration contained 4, calories and weighed five pounds ten ounces. By September , it was recognized that the suggestion for ten varieties of meat combinations was probably visionary since manufacturing processes were not yet ready to produce untried combinations. It was necessary, therefore, to reduce the variety of M-units to meat and beans, meat-and-vegetable hash, and meat-and-vegetable stew.
This was the form and content of U. Army Field Ration C when the revised Army regulation on rations was announced in It was also the ration procured for the Army maneuvers of. From that test emerged a range of criticisms: the cans were too large and bulky; the meat lacked variety, was too rich, and contained too many beans. As a result of the field recommendations, the ounce can was abandoned and a ounce can adopted as the standard size for the ration.
The number of biscuits in the B unit also was reduced and chocolate and soluble coffee added. Production experiences brought improvement in the quality of the meat components. Later changes, effected before the end of , introduced individually wrapped hard candies and chocolate caramels.
The C ration went through an evolution which ultimately produced an outstanding ration for the purpose it was designed to meet-a daily food which the soldier could carry and use when he was cut off from regular food supply sources. The use of these rations after revealed their inability to meet all the many feeding problems imposed by new combat conditions.
The haste attached to the initial wartime ration development indicated that the country was no better prepared to cope with the food problem in than with other problems of war supply. The early trial-and-error method was proof, too, that haste made waste. Add factors of warborn shortages of material and the continued necessity for providing adequate interim substitutes and the magnitude of the ration-development problem in World War II becomes evident.
Despite obstacles, many varied and excellent rations, packets, and supplements were developed and supplied to the World War II soldier.
In volume, approximately one billion special rations, costing about millions of dollars, were procured between and see table 1. The list includes such individual rations as the lightweight K ration, the emergency D ration, and the food-for-a-day C ration.
Need of rations in specific climates produced the mountain, jungle, and desert rations. Packets produced for subsistence requirements in flight were an aircrew lunch, a parachute-emergency packet, and an in-flight combat meal. At-sea survival called for lifeboat and liferaft rations and pointed to the desirability of all-purpose survival foods. Supplements were designed to augment other rations:.
At the end of the war, the assault packet, intended to provide a quick-energy snack before combat, was in production. Specifications governing the composition of the D ration were only slightly changed during the entire life of the ration. The ingredients were chocolate, sugar, dry milk, cacao fat, oat flour, and flavoring-a mixture providing calories per bar.
Some changes in packaging requirements were necessitated by material shortages and by suggestions for improvement. Mrak, E. Food research and development for the armed forces.
Martin Ed. Office of the Quartermaster General. Quartermaster corp manual committee on food research, research program — Chicago: Army Service Forces. Risch, E. The quartermaster corps: Organization, supply, and services. Washington: GPO. Samuels, J. A report on wartime problems in subsistence research and development Vol. Smith, E. Methods for changing consumer attitudes: A report of three experiments.
Steiner, P. Disease in the civil war. Springfield: Charles C. The National Provisioner. Thomas, M. Nutrient intakes and nutritional status of soldiers consuming the meal, ready-to-eat MRE XII during a day field training exercise Technical report no. Alexandria: DTIC. Thrasher, H. Model messes for the ETO. Records of the US Army headquarters, European theater of operations, historical section. Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, — microfilm box 7, roll United States.
Armed Forces Food and Container Institute.
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