U.S. Military MRE’s Projected to Shrink Significantly in Size
Pretty soon the MRE’s may need to change their name from Meals Ready to Eat to Meals In a Bar (MIB):
Soldiers of the future may be eating bacon and egg breakfasts via tiny food bars, due to a new process that shrinks meals to a fraction of their normal size.
Think sous vide, but for tactical quiches that may end up in your next Meal, Ready to Eat.
One dish begins with bacon, egg, cheese and heavy cream. The ingredients are inserted into a vacuum microwave dryer for 80 minutes of shrinkage and then squeezed by a machine. The result: a bar that’s smaller than a Snicker’s candy bar but with twice as many calories — and much more nutrition.
“A complete meal in a bar, that’s my goal,” said Tom Yang, senior food technologist at the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development, and Engineering Center.
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link.
And the next war in the desert…”why did we dehydrate the meals, we now need more potable water to hydrate the troops” I thought they learned that lesson in Desert Shield/Storm when soldiers were 100 miles from a water point and half the MREs were dehydrated (insert meat here) patty.
When I was in the Air Force, I had many meals in a bar… /jk
Please note the people making these abominations won’t be the ones depending on them. Who remembers the “four fingers of death” with a wish to try them again? And that alleged “peanut butter”!!!!
2id Doc, my mind immediately went to the dehydrated pork patty too…..uh those were terrible.
This misses the mental aspect of eating. Like field time isn’t monotonous enough without turning meal time into a huckfest of chomping bars. They weren’t awesome but it was better than what this is.
All hail #9, Meatballs in Spicy Sauce! 😀
I remember when MREs first appeared (way back in my Army days, before I got smart and re-enlisted into the Navy). The joke “MRE is three lies in one; they’re not meals, they’re not ready, and they’re not edible” was no joke back then. Since then, the MREs have made vast improvements, to include even having a vegetarian option (they should have more such options). But this new idea reminds me of the orignal series Star Trek episode, By Any Other Name. The Kelvans thought they could get all their nutrition from something not that much smaller than these little bars. What they were missing, just like the developers here and now are missing, is that while the MIB might very well have all the nutrition the human body needs, there are still other issues that need to be taken care of. One is that the body still needs fresh leafy greens (think “Atkins Diet Odor” for those who don’t consume such) and also the stomach needs to feel full or the hungry human will not be able to perform.